


Sleeping with Ghosts

by Verbana



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Feisty Akira grows up!, Friends to Lovers, Garden of Light and beyond, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-09-24 06:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20353564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbana/pseuds/Verbana
Summary: Seemed like Sing was trying to hold together half the city, those daysIn the era of After Ash, Sing struggles to find peace and happiness. His unrequited feelings for Eiji consume him. As the years pass, Sing searches for his place beyond the story of Ash and Eiji, and fights the realization he might actually be destined for the person he least expected.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Sorrow drips into your heart through a pin hole _

_ Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound _

_ But while you debate half empty and half full _

_ It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown _

-Death Cab For Cutie "Marching Bands of Manhattan

_I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake. _

-Ernest Hemingway

Sing first slept with Eiji when he was seventeen. Eiji had just settled into an apartment on the East Side, one which he would keep for six months before his visa expired again. Thanks to certain friends, Eiji managed to snag a job at a dingy pharmacy where he developed ugly, off-center photos of family vacations and sleeping cats.

In Eiji's free time he walked around the city with Kong and Bones or Alex or Sing and they talked about the old days, or nothing at all. He still had the same camera from years before and he took pictures of them and the blocky angles of buildings segmenting the skyline and pigeons waddling around spotty sidewalks.

New York in the 80s was plagued with drugs and gangs and garbage and giant hair. Eiji couldn't seem to get enough of the rushing, reeking city. Sing had never known anywhere else.

He had trailed Eiji every time the Japanese man returned to America, kept close to his shadow, sent boys from the gang to keep an eye on him in Sing's absence. Sing's joints ached endlessly. He lay awake in the dark, teeth gritted against the pain. His body stretched and grew, bigger, longer, better for protecting Eiji. One day he would be taller and stronger than Ash.

Every minute away from Eiji set him on edge. He woke sometimes, chest heaving for air, panic crawling up his stomach. A crackhead would knife Eiji in the throat, a drive-by would spray bullets into his workplace, a taxi would roll over him and shatter his bones.

Only in Eiji's apartment, sitting with him at the table that peeled strips of plasterboard, drinking tea and talking about the best place to get udon, only there Sing could relax. Breathe. Smile. Almost forget the lead weight burrowed in his head seeping continuous poison: Lao slumped against the battered concrete, eyes wide open, and that crumpled paper warped with blood and tears.

Eiji had gray shadows under his eyes. He said the traffic kept him awake at night. And yet Sing had seen him sleep in cramped bunkers filled with raucous, heavily armed teenagers. Sing's boys kept watch over Eiji's apartment at night, but it was unlikely that fear kept Eiji from sleep.

Sing looked at the stray flecks of tea leaves clinging to the sides of his white cup. He should get back to Chinatown, call Yut Lung about the shipments coming in over the weekend. Eiji kept talking, even as the windows darkened and street lamps cast yellow halos.

"I try to read Hemingway," Eiji said. "But it's so difficult." He smoothed the cover of _ Islands in the Stream _, his thumb rounding the corners.

"I can help you," Sing said. "Well...I can try. I never did much school myself."

"Thanks." Eiji rolled his lip in his teeth. He had the deepest, saddest eyes Sing had ever seen. Sometimes they almost split him in two and he had to look away to keep from breaking down and sobbing out stupid, useless apologies.

"You don't need to stay any longer," Eiji said. "I keep you from your work, I know."

Sing shook his head. "I wanna be here." That sounded too earnest and he fumbled a little before, "Uh, if you want me, of course." Which sounded even more pathetic.

"Maybe you can stay this night," Eiji said. "It's dangerous walking in dark."

"Yeah." Sing had to swallow back another uncomfortable, _ If you want me _.

Sing watched Eiji brush his teeth, their reflections juxtaposed in the mirror. His own face peered smaller and darker through the doorway. Eiji's eyes held his eyes for a moment, then dropped to the sink where his rinsed his toothbrush.

In the bedroom, he pulled off his t-shirt and Sing turned away, went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. The faucet dripped continuously. A laugh track clattered on a television in the apartment above.

When he returned to the bedroom, Eiji lay on the bed in his pajamas, turned toward the wall. He left a generous space for Sing. Quietly, Sing removed his sneakers and stuffed his balled socks into them. He eased onto the mattress and pulled the covers up with care.

They lay side by side through the long night, like brothers forced to share. Eiji slept soundly, hardly moving. Tension stretched Sing's body tight as a board. He felt the other's warmth like a steady touch. Headlights from the street chased a steady path across the wall, blurred by the curtains into traveling ghosts.

Eventually, Eiji's steady breathing loosened Sing's muscles and his heavy, tangled mind faded into the cool dark.

-

Over time, Sing got into the habit of staying with Eiji at least one night a week. He brought a sleeping bag and then Eiji found a decent futon at the market and kept it there for him. They always slept in the same room across from each other. Sing always woke up looking across the distance to Eiji's face: closed eyes, gentle and unaware.

He knew of course. Eiji had lived this way with Ash. It was always Ash.

Sometimes Eiji cried when he thought Sing was sleeping. His shoulders shook. Low, hushed sobs rocked his back. Sometimes he got up in the night to pace around the kitchen. Most of the time, he slept better with Sing there. Then again, maybe anyone would do as a mediocre replacement for a dead man.

Sing didn't know about Eiji and Ash, how far they had gone. Sometimes imagining them moving together, tangled up in a warm mess of young limbs, was the only way he could keep from wrapping himself around Eiji like a human bandage, trying to soak up the pain. He knew better. Trying to fill Ash's shoes was like dropping a pebble into the Grand Canyon.

-

Eiji didn't have a TV. Sing taught him some card games and they gambled with candy and beer. Kong got picked up on a weapons charge and they went to visit him in jail sometimes. They drank champagne toasts at Charlie and Nadia's wedding. Yut Lung started up several new trading companies and had Sing taking over more and more of the Chinatown business.

He sent flunkies in suits to bring Sing into his compound.

"I'm here, _ alone _, like you ordered," Sing growled. "You really think I'd bring him?"

"Who you choose to associate with is your own prerogative," Yut Lung answered. He still wore his hair long like a woman, but Sing saw him in business suits more often than cheongsams. "As long as you remain loyal and resourceful, I will turn a blind eye."

Sing snorted. "Good for you." Even across the room, he could smell the alcohol.

Yut Lung smoothed a strand of dark hair behind his ear in an unconscious vulnerable gesture. "I want you to enter a university," he said.

Sing had too much control to gape with a surprise, but he must have made some expression. Yut Lung smirked. Sing raised an eyebrow. "I don't got any diploma or GED. Ain't been to school since I was eleven."

"I've made arrangements considering such matters." Yut Lung ran a finger along a little stone table and inspected it for dust.

"You want to educate a street punk," Sing said, incredulous.

"Ash didn't go to school either," Yut Lung countered.

Sing felt every muscle in his body clench. "I am _ not _ Ash _ fucking _ Lynx."

"Of course not." Yut Lung folded his hands. "However, you are similar to him. A precocious natural leader. What more could I ask for? Oh yes, perhaps a business degree."

"You've already got shitloads of suits," Sing pointed out.

"And yet, out of all my employees, I feel you are the most capable to carry out my business here."

"What, you gonna adopt me?"

Yut Lung laughed quietly. "As I am only a few years your elder, I doubt that would be feasible or desirable. In fact, I need to be in Hong Kong for weeks on end. I need a second-in-command to keep things running here. Someone trustworthy."

Sing grinned tight. It hurt his face. "I guess you know I'd have knifed you in the back years ago if I was gonna."

The head of the Lee family gave him a cold smile. "I only hope your misguided pity continues to spare me."

Sing stalked out of the house and past the muscle at the door, saw his face warped in their black sunglasses. Perhaps he only imagined the loud clink of glass behind him, a heavy bottle--white or blue or sea green. Sing swallowed. In the room at his back, Yut Lung padded around his elaborate painted cage, safe from the world_ . Misguided pity. _ Well, somebody had to watch out for that sad, mad bastard. So, Sing had his back, if nobody else did.

Seemed like Sing was trying to hold together half the city, those days.

-

Eiji got a second job helping out at a professional photography studio. He threw a party when he was miraculously able to renew his visa again. So, Sing might have made a few calls to people who made a few calls to get it through, but if Eiji knew, he didn't say anything. His glowing face, so happy after so long, made everything okay.

Bones and Alex and some of the guys from the old gang showed up and they brought their girlfriends and everyone drank too much and played stupid games and shouted threats at the neighbors banging on the wall and Eiji got an eviction notice the next morning but they found him another place real easy.

Sing wanted him to move to Chinatown where protection might be easier, but the Yut Lung factor loomed over them all. Who knew what would happen if the two of them met again? Yut Lung would probably just sneer, then sulk and drink himself into a stupor. He had won his little game in the end, but all his victories turned bitter. Eiji, on the other hand, might actually get some foolish idea of killing Yut Lung. He had nothing to lose, after all.

Sing started taking classes at a little community college. After his first quarter, getting his grades and talking with his advisor, he started to dream. In four years, he'd have a degree, a (mostly) legitimate job, and a lot of money. He could take care of Eiji for real, not as a dumb little street boss, but as a responsible adult.

-

"There's something wrong with my camera," Eiji complained. "All these photos, see? They are blurred."

Sing studied the pictures spread over the table. Kids shooting marbles, a garbage man perched on a truck, crumpled newspaper rising on the wind. "They look fine to me."

Eiji frowned. "You don't have photographer's eye."

"No, I have twenty-twenty eye," Sing said, snickering. "You need glasses, old man."

On the way back from the optometrist, Eiji stopped Sing in an alley. "Did you hear that?"

Sing listened intently, but Eiji was already making for an overturned garbage can, a man on a mission. When he pulled a sticky, scruffy puppy out of a wad of hamburger wrappers, Sing raised his eyebrows. "Whoa."

"Poor puppy," Eiji crooned.

Sing rolled his eyes. "I know a great restaurant that will take it right off your hands."

Eiji glared at him and held the animal closer to his chest.

"Look, you can't have a dog in your apartment," Sing grumbled.

Eiji just snuggled the whining mutt under his chin.

Sing pushed his hands into his pockets and made a face. "Fine, I'll take care of him."

"I expect my buddy alive when I see him again," Eiji said, handing the puppy over reluctantly.

-

Eiji did portraits for the studio, freelance for the newspapers, and eventually started selling his photos in larger magazines. Some big name magazine published his pictures of window-shoppers on Fifth Avenue, women with handbags clutched to their breasts, imagining how that dress would look, children smudging glass for a closer look at miniature cars, a homeless man framed by glittering mannequins.

Sing had it all planned out. Three years of college down and he was raking in the dough in his free time, running jobs for the Lee syndicate. He made the down payment on a gorgeous house in Long Island, close to Eiji's studio and far enough from Chinatown to provide an adequate buffer from Yut Lung. It had two bedrooms, two baths, a spacious kitchen for their nights cooking together, and a grassy dog run for Buddy.

Showing Eiji around the place, he felt his anticipation rise. The two of them and Buddy could live together in his house, a small, (possibly) happy family. Sing never said, "Please live with me," but with every room, every step, it built up in him until he was sure Eiji could see the hunger rising out of him. Eiji smiled and nodded and said it was all quite amazing, Sing had done so well. But he did not move into the beautiful house

Two weeks later, Eiji and Buddy found a nice pet-friendly apartment in Greenwich. It even had a guestroom.

-

The days and nights stretched on with Sing at Eiji’s apartment more often than not. It was small enough that they rubbed shoulders passing in the hall and scrunched together on the narrow sofa to watch TV.

It had to happen sometime. The need curled and coiled and knotted up inside him. Sing could hardly look at Eiji's shaggy head with his dorky glasses and his hidden smiles. He had to barricade himself against the hunger.

They slept without shirts during the summer, Eiji on his mattress and Sing on the futon near him. Sing always woke up first. He wandered over to the window and opened the off-white curtains so the sun could flood in. Eiji sniffed in his sleep and turned away from the light. He looked years younger without his glasses on. His hair spread out like a limp crown. Sing chuckled and caught a strand between his fingers. Lightly, he brushed it over Eiji's nose until the sleeping man scowled and pulled the sheet over his head.

Grinning, Sing looked at Eiji's bare feet sticking out the out the other end. He brushed his fingers over the bottoms until Eiji's toes twitched irritably. A soft huff of laughter came from under the sheet. Sing knelt on the bed and started tickling Eiji's feet in earnest until the Japanese man howled and threw off the sheet.

Sing beamed down at Eiji's baffled mouth, wild hair, the face that Eiji tried to make disapproving before it crumpled into mirth. "You should have told me you were ticklish," Sing said.

"Never!" Eiji choked through his laughter.

Sing snorted and went for Eiji's ribs with both hands, fingers merciless. The man beneath him thrashed and shouted with laughter, hands coming up to wrestle him off. Somewhere in the ensuing battle, pushing Eiji's arms back into the mattress and staring down into brown eyes crinkled with happiness, Sing lost himself and started kissing his friend. Eiji's breath puffed hot into his mouth. His struggling body went limp and then tensed all at once.

"Sing—" he started to say before the younger man cut him off with another, harder, kiss. He felt Eiji's mouth open up to him and then they were both kissing uncontrollably. Eiji's hands curled into the sheets. He murmured soft, needy sounds into Sing's mouth. Sing let go of Eiji's wrists to run both hands down his body, felt Eiji's hips arch up into him. He moaned into Eiji's throat and Eiji's hands flexed against his shoulders. The sudden surge of lust rattled Sing. He jerked backwards and stared at Eiji's face.

Eiji was breathing hard, face flushed, mouth red and wet. His eyes were shut, of course. After all, Sing didn't have blond hair or green eyes. Eiji blinked and opened his eyes to search Sing's questioning gaze. The silence shut his mouth.

"Maybe, maybe we should not..." Eiji said shakily.

But they could. Sing knew this and felt Eiji's arousal shivering off his skin. They could and maybe it would be fantastic and brilliant and Eiji would writhe and plead beneath him and cry, "_ Ash!" _when he came.

And Sing couldn't stand it.

He scrambled off the mattress and stumbled to the bathroom. Eiji said nothing to stop him. He turned on the shower and stood far too long under the spray. Eiji had plenty of time to close his eyes and jerk off if he wanted, imagining another's hands.

When Sing emerged, Eiji had dressed and poured himself a bowl of cereal. They went through the old rituals—tea for Eiji, coffee for Sing, a bagel with peanut butter, a segmented orange.

Eiji said, "I think maybe we can set up the guestroom for you, because you are here every day." Wind trembled the curtains in the open window.

Sing could have walked out at that point. He could have taken the dismissal as an insult. He could have confronted his friend head-on. But the fear showed in Eiji's hands shivering the tea in his cup, if not on his face. "Yeah," Sing said. "Thanks."

-

(It's not that they stopped sleeping together. Sometimes Sing came into Eiji's room after a long day and stretched out on the bed beside him, fully dressed and on top of the blankets. He just lay there listening to Eiji breathe, or if Eiji was awake, they talked quietly in the dark. Sing always left before morning.)

-

After seven years of living in New York, Eiji got his green card. It didn't hurt that he had some powerful contacts with big-name journalists, the NYPD, and the Chinese mafia.

Max and Jessica took them all out to dinner to celebrate. Their preteen son, Michael was going through his anime phase and had to ask Eiji a million questions.

"Japan's military has no giant robots, I am certain," Eiji said, suppressing a grin.

"I knew it," Michael said, but his chin dropped a little.

"Also, no muscle troll dolls that shoot laser beams out of their palms," Sing said.

Michael made a face at him. Jessica laughed.

"So, you think you'll stay here for the long haul, eh?" Max asked.

Eiji smiled. "Yes, of course. I miss my family, but New York is my home now."

Max put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm proud of how well you've adapted. Ash would be too, if he could see us."

Sing felt his throat tighten, but Eiji just murmured his thanks. His fingers left pockmarks on the vinyl of the booth.

-

(Sing had lied Eiji, that afternoon at the airport, shouting with all his heart. "_ You gotta come back, Eiji! Ash told me to say you hafta come back to America as soon as you can!" _ At the time, he had considered it a gift to both of them, the only right thing to do, giving Eiji hope, tying him there forever.)

-

Alex gave Eiji the old computer stored away in one of their former hideouts. A gray, angular behemoth, it looked painfully bulky and ancient on the desk in the guestroom. Sing had never seen Eiji use it. He never even spoke about it, except to tell Sing he could have it if he wanted. It stayed in the guestroom, which became Sing's room. He rarely returned to the house on Long Island anymore.

The machine fascinated him, a rare look into Ash's labyrinth mind. It contained hundreds of files on numerous subjects: medical research, geopolitical unrest, financial trends. He seemed to have an expert's grasp on every subject and an uncanny ability to predict the future. Too bad he couldn't predict Lao.

Sixteen year old Sing had worshipped Ash as everything he could hope to become. (Maybe he had even fallen a little in love with Ash, but then who hadn't?) Twenty-two year old Sing hated Ash almost as much as he hated himself. If Ash had any flaws, no one could recall them. You can't compete with the revered dead.

"Don't fight your memories," Yut Lung told him in a rare moment of compassion, "because you're never going to win."

-

Sing took up boxing. He punished the swinging blue bag on a regular basis. His knuckles bruised and toughened. His arms and chest filled out with muscles. He also studied for class, went to business meetings, drafted proposals, conferred with Yut Lung, but all this sped by in the gray space between boxing and nights with Eiji. Every evening they ate dinner together, talked about Eiji's work and Sing's projects. Sometimes they had friends over, but the best nights were just the two of them, moving around the kitchen like a practiced team. Sing couldn't cook like Eiji, but he cut vegetables and boiled noodles well enough.

When Eiji got the call about his first major gallery opening, they celebrated with pricey sushi and too much sake. Eiji couldn't stop giggling. He fell asleep on the couch, still smiling widely. Sing carried him to bed and Eiji said, "You are number one," in a slurred, sing-song voice. If it weren't for the overpowering alcohol fumes rising off of the man, Sing might have given in.

How long does it take to move on, to fall out of love? Seven years?

-

Akira arrived, a scrawny tomboy with a dark bob and big, scared eyes. "You look like an Asian chipmunk," Sing said. He got a lot of pleasure out of teasing her. She believed everything he told her, the New York was the largest city in the world, alligators lived in its sewers, and giant monkeys climbed its tall buildings.

Sing took her to the library and snapped a picture of her with a stone lion. Unease stirred inside him. No, Sing wasn't over it. He still picked up his books at a smaller branch library. Standing there, on the steps, he couldn't help but remember shouting at Ash, angry and desperate. _ "You got nothing to say to Eiji? How can you let him go like this?" _

But Akira distracted him. Her fascination with the size of the library, the maze of shelves and stories, kept him occupied. It turned into a full time job, just keeping up with her frantic pace of discovery. She stared at the displays of magazines and newspapers flashing headlines. "You know English, Chinese, and Japanese, Sing?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm learning Spanish too. It's a melting pot here."

Akira's face turned mournful. "I wish I was born in America."

At Tiffany's, she leaned in so close to the cases her breath made foggy circles on the glass. "This is the ring I want when I get married," she told Sing, pointing at a trio of tear-drop diamonds clustered on a gold band.

"I'll let Eiji know," he teased.

"No!" Akira cried, mortified. "That's not what I meant."

Sing chuckled. "Yeah, you don't want to marry a poor photographer. He couldn't afford that ring. Stick with me; I'm gonna be the big-shot businessman."

Akira sniffed. "Okumura-san is twice the man you are."

They met him walking Buddy in Central Park. The three of them sat on a bench eating hotdogs and watching the skateboarders. Buddy stole Akira's bun when she wasn't paying attention. Eiji bought her another. She wandered among the street markets, smelling flowers, touching clothes, and standing transfixed while an artist sketched a quick portrait of a man with a Dalmatian.

"You want a picture?" Sing asked her.

"No," Akira lied. She rubbed Buddy's ears, her cheeks flushed.

Eiji gave the guy ten bucks and convinced her to pose. They brought the picture home and hung it in Eiji's growing wall gallery: little Akira with her arms around Buddy's bright neck, eyes downcast, too shy to look at the artist.

-

Eiji hired some assistants, eager college students, to help him set up for the big opening. They made a mess of the living room and kitchen, scattering glossy photographs over every surface. Eiji spent most of his time going through pictures or working at the gallery. 

In his absence, Sing took Akira around the city. The watched _ The Lion King _, took the circle line around the city, and wandered around the Statue of Liberty before the hordes of summer tourists scared them off. Outside the Museum of Natural History, he bought her a giant stuffed bear. Most American thirteen year-olds would flinch from being seen with a teddy bear, but Akira carried it on her hip like a floppy toddler. "His name is Gorby," she told Sing.

"Ah," Sing said. "That's good." He was distracted by Eiji's name sprawled in black across a copy of the City Art Review left on the steps. On closer inspection, the grainy black and white photo showed Eiji looking smart and confident.

They took a cab to Eiji's gallery where framed photos appeared on the white walls with rapid speed. Michael, hauling a large picture of Brooklyn Bridge, asked Eiji, "Are you gonna use any pictures of Ash?"

Sing's breath died in his throat. But Eiji shook his head. "Not in this show," he said.

"_ Don't be an idiot _," Sing shouted silently at Michael, at himself.

-

(Eiji kept the slides locked away in his bedroom closet. If he thought this would keep people away, he didn't know Sing very well. It didn't take a projector to see Ash's tiny, tinted face or the emotion radiating out of those photos. Sing put them away after the first time and never touched them again.)

-

"Who is Ash?"

Sing stared down into Akira's big, sad eyes. Mats squeaked and gloves thumped against yielding plastic.

"Let's go home," he told her, at last. "I've got something to show you."

He opened the door to his little room. The computer on his desk looked back at them. Its dull glass screen reflected their blurred faces.

"Ash, meet Akira," Sing said.

Akira peered skeptically at the aging model. "I think it belongs in a museum," she said.

"Still works," Sing answered. "Still remembers."

Akira pursed her mouth. "Did Okumura-san love this Ash person?" She would not stand distraction.

The words came easily. "Yes, he did. Very much." He kept his head turned away from her.

Silence saturated a long moment. "Was Ash very beautiful?"

At last, Sing looked at Akira. Her eyes were on the carpet.

He didn't baby her. "So beautiful you wouldn't believe it. Blond hair, fierce green eyes. Long and lean with grace like a dancer." He could almost see Ash striding out of Golzine’s mansion with a machine gun under his arm, elegant tux torn, gold hair flying, burning like an avenging angel.

Akira's mouth turned down and her eyes fell. After a moment she muttered, "I'd better get back to the gallery."

Sing suppressed his laughter. "Cool. Tell Eiji I'll be—"

The door slammed in Akira's wake. Sing covered his smile with one hand. _ Ah, young love _.

The empty room closed in on him in her absence. The computer's dark screen glared continually back at him. Sing bared his teeth at it. "Ash, I'm fucking sick of this. When are you gonna let him go already? What the hell do you want from us?"

The computer just stared impassively back at him.

"What were you thinking, anyway?" His mind went down the same old path to that day: Ash slowly bleeding out in the library, slumped over a crumpled paper...Ash, stretched out on the metal table, all pale and empty, a strange smile lingering on his drained face. And why shouldn't he smile? He'd died with Eiji's confession of eternal love--a soul contract--in his hands.

Before he could help himself, Sing went to his hiding place and dug it out. He had memorized the words by now, but he touched the finger-grooves in the warped pages and the raised spots of Ash's tears. To have the key to happiness and die in front of the gate... Sing felt for him. But enough was enough.

"Let Eiji go," he pleaded. "You've had him for so long. Let him be happy again." Pressure burned behind Sing's eyes and he blinked. "Until he's happy I can't..."

The computer reflected the glare of light. Sing took a deep breath and steadied himself. "Listen to me, Ash. I'm getting him back from you no matter what."

Overhead, the light bulb crackled, flickering a momentary shadow. And then it was gone, like a brush of wings.

-

Back at the gallery, Sing listened with everyone else as the reporter interviewed Eiji. The Japanese photographer responded with charm and modesty and his audience smiled and laughed in the right places.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sing saw Akira ask Michael a question, then startle at his answer. So it didn't surprise him when she came up to him after the interview, solemn and determined.

"Sing, was Ash a man?"

All the knotted, bloody past clogged his head. If he told her _ "Yes" _ now, she would recoil and think _ , Okumura-san is a homosexual, _ which hardly touched the edge of it all. _ "We're just people," _ he wanted to say, " _ all fucked-up and lonely and grabbing for someone who understands." _

But this was Akira. Sing touched her shoulder. "Let's get outta here," he said.

He took her to the old house in Chinatown. Graffiti still coiled over the walls, some of it his. The leaking roof left wide brown puddles dried on the floor. Empty cans and bits of trash remained. A faded red yo-yo coiled in a corner.

Akira surveyed the scene, cocked her head at the writing on the wall. She hummed nervously under her breath. "Um, was this Ash person Okumura-san's lover?"

Sing peered out the window at the quiet street below. "He was more than that." Behind him, he felt Akira's shocked inhalation. "Which doesn't mean they had a sexual relationship," he added quickly. "Well, they loved each other deeply...and Eiji still does. It doesn't just go away."

"But Ash died?" Akira said, confused.

"My brother Lao killed him." He had never said it aloud before. "Seven ago." It seemed like an eternity. The rest of his life for penance.

"And Okumura-san..." Akira said in a quiet voice, "He went back to New York."

"Ash's death changed him completely." Sing said. Resentment stung in his gut. "Eiji's personality changed, the way he lives...his whole life changed."

A shuffle of feet behind him alerted him to another presence. Akira jumped a little.

Eiji smoothed a hand over her hair. "Aki-chan, there's a taxi waiting outside. Can you get in it? I need to talk with Sing for a minute."

"Okay," Akira replied quickly. She gave one last grave look to Sing and went for the stairs.

"I like that little pipsqueak," Sing said gruffly to cover the anger still simmering under his skin.

Eiji didn't smile. "I'm not so changed," he said softly. "I've just grown up, that's all." His eyes hovered, almost pleading, on Sing's face. "I think I'm doing alright."

Sing took two fast steps into Eiji and managed to stop himself. "It’s not alright," he hissed. "Ash is dead." Eiji's eyes flared wide. "Ash is dead and you can't accept it."

Eiji stared, mouth fallen open. "I can..." his voice cracked.

Sing wanted to shake the sorrow out of him. He grabbed Eiji by both shoulders and pushed him into the wall. "Let him go!" Eiji's glasses clattered on the floor and still Sing couldn't stop. "Just let go, dammit! You have to move on!"

Eiji winced and squinted up at Sing, startled and hurt. Sing closed his arms around the other man and crumpled, sagging against him. "You have to be happy again."

Eiji's hair moved against his cheek. Eiji's breath puffed against his neck. "Sing," he said. "I'm thinking of going up to Cape Cod tomorrow." His voice stayed level and calm.

Sing pushed himself away with one hand. Eiji looked back at him, fearless. "I'll take some pictures. We'll bring Buddy and Akira and make a day of it. You'll come, right?"

As if Sing could ever refuse him anything.

-

Although Sing had never seen Cape Cod, he knew its significance. Ash came from this pretty New England town with its white houses and white sails. Sing and Akira walked Buddy along the wharf while Eiji snapped pictures. The sun warmed them through their t-shirts and the sea breeze whipped Akira's short lockes against her face. Sing inhaled deep and listened to a clanging bell and loud voices. Light clung to everything, blinked off the flexing water. Wind filled his ears.

Eiji dashed forward to see the face of a startled blond tourist. "Sorry," he said, "I thought you were a friend of mine."

_ How? _ Sing demanded inwardly. _ How could it possibly be him? _

Akira looked up at Sing, her face drawn. She knew. Seven years wasn't nearly enough.

They stopped on the front porch of an old house converted into an antique shop tourist trap. Eiji's camera clicked little snicks of sound.

He pointed to the trees behind them. "See that?" Light filtered in through the leaves, a glittering mosaic. Sing couldn't look directly at it. Bits of sun danced behind his closed eyes. Akira cooed, delighted. Buddy barked.

"Let's go for a walk," she told the dog, eager to get closer to the water. Eiji handed her the leash.

"She's struggling," he told Sing as they watched Akira lead Buddy away. "Her father always wanted a boy, you know. She blames herself for everything that goes wrong in her family."

Sing smiled. "You haven't changed," he said. "You still hear those cries for help when no one else does."

"But I ignored yours," Eiji said. Wisps of hair had escaped from his ponytail and trailed against his face. "I knew about the letter, the reason Lao got so close."

Panic whipped Sing around to face him, but he only saw Eiji's back. "No," Sing started to protest, "That's not—"

"I knew how terrible you felt. And I did nothing." Eiji closed his eyes. "I just couldn't stop reliving that day over and over again. I couldn't stop hating myself long enough to comfort you."

He turned his face up to the tree. The play of light and shadows shifted over his skin and hair. "I'll never forget Ash. I never want to forget him. But that doesn't mean I'll never be happy again."

Footsteps clunked against the wooden stairs. At his back, Sing felt Akira, a small vibrant presence, watching.

"Ash lived all out," Eiji said. "He never slowed down, never stopped giving everything to protect us. Despite everything that happened to him, he fought until the end." Eiji met Sing's eyes, his shoulders open and relaxed. "We are so lucky to have known him, even for a short time."

"I know..." Sing stumbled. His chest hurt. He bit the inside of his cheek hard. "I know I can never replace him for you..."

"Of course not." Eiji smiled. "Just like no one can replace you, Sing." He turned his head and looked at the shy girl on the steps. "And no one can replace you, Aki-chan."

He walked to her and pulled her into a hug. Akira pushed her face into his chest with a huffing noise. Eiji's hand slid up to cup the back of her head. Sing looked down on her shaking shoulders and Eiji's gentle fingers. He put his hands in his pockets and lowered his eyes to the weathered boards beneath his feet.

-

There, at the back of the gallery, he saw it. At first, a wave of shock ran over him, then cool release followed by hot veins of grief. He held Akira's little damp hand and tears ran long tracks down his face. When had he last cried? Ash sat framed in the window, eyes closed, head lowered. The sun embraced him, filled his skin. He could be peacefully sleeping. He could be blissfully dead.

-

All through the walk to the terminal, Akira stayed silent. At the gate, she returned Eiji's hug and let Sing ruffle her hair. "You'll write to us," Eiji said.

"Only if you write back," Akira said, uncharacteristically sharp. But she was looking at Sing. He tilted his head and took in the image of her, still in black bike shorts and a long t-shirt, a giant bag slung over one small arm and an oversized teddy bear in the other.

"Yeah, I'll write to you, kid. Don't grow up too fast."

Akira wrinkled her nose at him. "Faster than you, I hope."

She filed into the line at the gate and their last glimpse was of Gorby's round ears waving merrily goodbye.

-

As they drove back from the airport, Sing said, "So, you're happy now?"

Eiji turned to him, surprised. "Yes," he said. "I've made my peace. I have a good life."

Sing kept his gaze fastened on the road ahead. "So you don't need me anymore."

Eiji laughed softly. "Need? Well, you've been my support for so long. I never knew... Well, I never wanted to let you go."

Silence stretched as Sing tried to digest this. His thumbnails dug into the steering wheel.

Eiji sighed. "Your guilt kept you here with me. I'm sorry I never said anything."

"No." But Sing didn't know what he was denying. It was true, but it was all wrong.

"We should have discussed this many years ago," Eiji continued. "It took me a long time to forgive Lao. But I know he only wanted to save you."

"Do you forgive me?" Sing asked.

Eiji frowned. "For what?"

"For never telling you..." Sing breathed deep. "For keeping the letter."

For a long moment, Eiji didn't say anything. Sing exhaled hard. "I still have it. I guess I should put it on his grave or something."

"No," Eiji breathed. "He's not there."

Sing's fear knotted up in his gut. His hands ached from gripping the wheel. Trees and houses melted and streaked together in a long blur. 

"Of course I forgive you," Eiji said.

-

It took all his concentration to park the car, open the door, get out. The front steps pulled him like a magnet. As soon as they got into the apartment, Sing slammed the door and pulled Eiji into a hard embrace. "It's not guilt," he said, low and harsh. "I mean, not just guilt that kept me."

"I know," Eiji said, kind as always, hands rubbing his back. "You are always a good friend."

Sing groaned into his shoulder. He got desperate and kissed Eiji's ear, then his jaw and his neck. Eiji stilled and breathed slowly, his hands sliding off Sing's back.

"Tell me that you're over him," Sing pleaded.

"Sing—"

"No, tell me that you're okay." Sing raised his head to study Eiji's face. Concern mixed with sadness weighed down his features. Sing's chest ached with the pressure of an invisible fist. "It's me. Not him. I need you to see that."

"I know." And Eiji's arms folded around him again, and Eiji kissed his mouth. His eyes held all the comforting warmth. "Of course it's you, Sing."

-

Sing woke up in Eiji's bed, sticky with dried sweat. The sun pushed early rays through the window. Delivery trucks rattled down the street. A bird squeaked up a storm on a nearby tree. Eiji's hair spread over his shoulders and the pillows, tangled by Sing's fingers and Eiji's tossing head. He had a beautiful pink welt under his jaw that Sing wanted to run his tongue over again.

Grinning, Sing stretched his back and rolled his neck. Tingles of energy ran up his muscles. He wanted to wake Eiji up so they could do it all again, and more, but Eiji's serene sleeping face stopped him. He padded to the shower instead.

The rivulets of warm water ran with images of Eiji beneath him, panting and pulling off Sing's shirt, Eiji on top of him, running hot, smooth hands down his chest and sides, teeth scraping at his skin as he fumbled with Sing's fly. The two of them kissing and grinding. They came together first with their clothes still half on, then once completely naked, all bare skin and heat, and then Eiji brought Sing off with his mouth when the other couldn't stop. Still, Sing didn't want to sleep, nuzzling and pawing at Eiji until the other threatened to kick him out of bed.

In the shower Sing groaned and tried to force his arousal down. He had seven long years to make up, and he would take every chance he got.

-

(Sing first had sex with Eiji, when he was twenty-three. They settled into a physical relationship that would last exactly two years.)

-

"This is what I get for taking a younger lover," Eiji complained, still panting and clinging to the counter for support. "Now the noodles will be too soft."

"Oh, they'll get hard again," Sing said, snickering. He ran a hand up Eiji's back to feel the perspiration there. Eiji's long black hair stuck to his flushed neck. His slacks hung off his bent knees.

Eiji straightened with some effort and went for a paper towel to wipe up the mess they had made on themselves and the lower cupboards. "I'll boil some more water," he said. "You finish with those bean sprouts." He glared half-heartedly at Sing's broad grin. "And wash your hands first!"

"_ Hai _, Okumura-sama," Sing answered, unable to stop smirking.

-

Akira sent a letter in wobbly English peppered with kanji and cartoon drawings. Sing wrote a reply. Eiji added a quick note—_ Miss you, Aki-chan! Sing and I are very busy with classes and work. We wish you were here to help us cook and walk Buddy every day. I am sending you pictures. Say hi to Ibe and family for me. _

Eiji never wrote much, but he always provided the photos to illustrate Sing’s accounts of their lives. Sing read her letters aloud in the kitchen, on park benches, and at café tables. He could feel her speaking the words, high and soft.

_ “I’m on the track team,” _ she said, _ “but I will never jump as high as Okumura-san. I saw his picture when I was a little girl. And since then, I only want to jump into that sky.” _

_ “Don’t jump too high,” _ Sing replied. _ “You might take out Tokyo Tower. I’d like to see that someday.” _

_ “I went to the sea with my friends. We ate hot dogs and they didn’t taste anything like the ones we had in Central Park.” _

_ “Buddy has learned to walk on his hind feet for bits of hot dog. At night, he snores like a chainsaw.” _

_ “I feel like New York is a thousand years away,” _ she wrote. _ “Sometimes I cannot remember your voice.” _

-

(Time rushed by in a silent flood. The plants in Eiji's apartment grew like a rainforest. One day the ficus by the door barely reached Sing's knee. It seemed the next time he turned around, it had snaked up to stare him down like a giraffe.)

-

He liked to come up behind Eiji and lift the long, dark hair, circle his waist with one arm and kiss his neck, the soft, short hairs brushing his skin. Eiji chuckled and shrugged him away. "Working," Eiji warned. Several pages spread before him filled with tiny photos all lined up in neat rows. His hand moved over them, jotting notes and numbers in the margins.

So, yeah, it bothered Sing a little that Eiji wanted to keep their relationship under wraps, but why should anyone poke into their private lives? He liked having Eiji as his secret lover, the perk at the end of his day (and sometimes the beginning). When people asked about his girlfriend he gave a subtle smile and vague reply.

He wondered what Eiji said when people asked him.

Nothing seemed to affect Eiji. He still spent long hours in his dark room and at various galleries. He still prowled the city on his own, with only his camera and a subtle tail of Sing's guard. Despite the occasional picture in his exhibitions, he still kept all of Ash's negatives locked away.

In Sing's arms, he gasped and sighed and explored Sing's body with a comfortable ease. They made love on the floor; in the shower slick with spray; tangled in the chairs; splayed across the couch; bent over the kitchen table and counters; frantically against the wall; lazily in the bed soaked with heat. But even at their most intimate, when Sing's heart hammered against his breastbone and his lungs ached with hard breathing, tight, unspoken words, the distance crushed him.

Eiji closed his eyes. His head fell back or tossed against the sheets. Afterwards, he smoothed Sing's broad shoulders, ruffled his hair like a child. _ Thank you _, his gentle smile seemed to say.

And Sing couldn't scream, _ Why aren't I enough? _ So he just smiled back.

-

Sing slipped up. Maybe he meant to.

Max, Jessica, and Michael came over to dinner. Eiji made shrimp tempura with udon. Afterwards, Sing agreed to kick a soccer ball around in the park with Michael. He went to change out of his business suit and walked right into Eiji's bedroom. His jersey was still slung over the back of a chair where Eiji had thrown it the night before. Once inside, it was too late to backpedal and say, "Oops, wrong door." He pulled on the jersey and strode out, hoping no one would notice.

Max raised his eyebrows. "You guys are sharing clothes now? Eiji, did you start taking out your aggression in the gym too?"

Jessica coughed awkwardly into her napkin.

"Ready, Sing?" Michael asked, his focus only on the upcoming soccer showdown.

"Yeah," Sing followed the kid out the door. Eiji could explain it however he liked.

In the park, Michael ran circles around a distracted Sing, eager to have the upper hand for once. He leapt and crowed after his second goal, swinging his arms with victory. Sing finally threw himself into the game, legs pounding into the dry grass. His blood thundered in his head, beating out Eiji's impassive face at the dinner table.

When they returned to the apartment, the others were admiring Eiji's new collection, pictures of East Harlem. Jessica looked over her shoulder and gave Sing a secret smile. When they left, she kissed his cheek and patted his head softly.

"So," Sing started after the door closed and Eiji went for the kitchen. "You told them."

"Told them what?"

Sing's shoulders fell. "Uh, about my shirt. In your room."

"Oh, I just changed the subject." The faucet hissed. Dishes rattled in the sink. "Max has the attention span of a fly and Jessica didn't seem to care."

"Hm." Sing shouldn't care. He liked this secret. He imagined Max's mouth falling open, still full of food. He saw Jessica laughing aloud for the sheer surprise and joy of it. He imagined slinging an arm around Eiji's shoulders, bumping their heads lightly. Michael might turn red and mutter, "Get a room, you guys," but he would get used to it.

Well, Sing liked his secret.

-

Sometimes he still woke up in the night, chest burning, mind racing. If Eiji lay beside him, he could calm himself, curl in closer, and fall asleep. But if Sing slept in a hotel on a business trip, if Eiji stayed the night in D.C. setting up a gallery, if Eiji even got up in the night for a glass of water, Sing could not rest. His heart pounded in his ears. Eiji would fall in love with his assistant—the one with wavy blond hair, or he would get an _ omiai _ from his parents and settle down with a nice Japanese woman, or he would wake up one morning and finally find Sing's suffocating presence unbearable.

-

"You're a fool," Yut Lung told him. "You might as well ask river to flow uphill."

The youngest Lee crouched in his garden, brushing his fingers over filmy orange flowers. Sing stood stiffly behind him. The two guards near the gate trapped him in the gloss of their dark glasses.

Sing hated how Yut Lung always seemed to know everything. "I'll deal with it."

Yut Lung chuckled and plucked a feathery leaf. "Ah, little Sing Soo-Ling. So eager to make everything right."

Sing steeled himself. "So, I get my week?"

"Of course." Yut Lung turned to face him. "You'll keep your phone with you. I'll keep your loyalty in mind." He brushed the leaf against Sing's nose. Sing twitched, but kept from jerking away.

Yut Lung's dark, cool eyes had little red lines creeping in the corners. He moved the leaf against his lips and it fluttered with his voice. "I learned my lesson. Some things are meant to stay broken."

Sing said nothing, his face blank.

-

They flew to Japan to see Eiji's family. One week. His mother started crying as soon as she saw them in the airport. Sing's rusty Japanese came flying back to him. He managed the proper greetings and etiquette. Outside of business trips for the company, Sing hadn’t traveled much beyond NY. The green, rolling hills of Izumo dotted with vermilion _ tori _ gates and temples and shrines amazed him. So far removed from the concrete and skyscrapers of the cities he knew.

Ibe met them at a family restaurant, slouched in a plastic booth and poring over an array of papers, pen in hand. When he looked up, the sight of his gray hair and deep wrinkles shocked Sing. But it had been almost ten years since he last saw the Japanese reporter. Nearly ten years since Ash’s death.

“You never get any older, Ibe growled when he saw Eiji. His gaze went to Sing, faintly puzzled. “Ah, you were running around with those Chinese kids, right?”

“This is my friend Sing,” Eiji answered smoothly. “We share an apartment. You remember him from the airport.”

Ibe’s brow furrowed. He looked Sing up and down. “That scrawny kid? It’s impossible.”

“I grew up,” Sing said, showing his teeth.

“Apparently.” Ibe lifted an eyebrow, glancing between them.

Distantly, Sing heard a door shut and then Akira appeared at the table, sidling up cautiously like a shy cat, still skinny and knobby, a little taller, her hair grown to her shoulders and was parted on the side. “Okumura-san,” she said. She ducked her head and her eyes flashed briefly to Sing’s face before she lowered them. “Sing. So nice to see you again.” She wore an oversized sweater that hung off one sharp shoulder and chunky blue hoop earrings—clip-ons, he realized. She fiddled the long ends of her sleeves with her thumbs.

“How’ve you been, kid?” Sing asked, walking next to her.

“Good, thank you. I got into Honwa High School this year. It’s the best in the city.”

“Don’t let those dumb boys sweep you off your feet,” he teased.

“As if I could ever be interested in them,” she scoffed.

“No way,” he agreed. He nodded toward Eiji. “You keep your eyes on the big prize.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t care about that. I’m not a child anymore.”

“How’s Gorby?”

She groaned, but her dimples showed when she smiled. “He’s on a shelf in my room,” she admitted, “with a box of all your letters.”

Sing felt a quick flare of happiness.

Akira pursed her lips, “You know, I just keep everything from New York together, that’s all.”

“Mm,” Sing agreed. “We give all your letters to Buddy and he keeps them buried under the maple tree, I think.”

Akira glared. “You’re awful, as usual.”

“Don’t listen to him, Akira,” Eiji said. “He’s just a bitter old man.”

“Yeah? Then you’re practically ancient.”

“Hey,” Ibe protested, “Let’s not get into that.”

“I’m going to start calling all of you ‘uncle,’” Akira threatened.

-

Sing and Eiji visited the big shrine with his parents. It was crowded and hot and the scent of incense was overpowering. Huge ropes of twisted straw crossed the eaves of the ancient building. Worshippers tossed coins into the offering bin, clapped and bowed. A young man in a windbreaker was throwing coins underhand up into the ends of the coiled ropes themselves.

“If one sticks, that’s extra luck,” Eiji murmured to Sing.

They moved slowly in the line up the steps, but it was not a long wait. Sing threw his coin and clapped in time with Eiji, praying silently,_ Let him be mine _.

After Eiji’s parents completed the ritual, they all shuffled over to the wall where lucky amulets were sold.

“This is where my sister bought me an amulet for a good marriage,” Eiji said with a chuckle. “Do you remember it? Did I show it to you? We were in the middle of a gang war and she was thinking of that.”

“I don’t remember,” Sing said.

“This shrine is special for praying for a partner,” Eiji’s mother said. “We came here regularly when our daughter was in her wild twenties. And now she’s happily married with two children.” She looked at Eiji with a laughing smile. “We are still praying for you.”

Eiji smiled back at her. “Don’t waste your time on me, mother. I may be single forever, but I will be safe and happy.”

Sing wanted to declare that he would love and care for Eiji even if they never had the chance to marry. But he turned his head away and pretended to be interested in the wooden amulets and their painted blessings.

-

(In New York, Eiji takes pictures of Sing. There’s one with his shirt pulled up to wipe the sweat off his face, one with him hunched over a book. One with Buddy sprawled all over his legs, one of him chopping cabbage and raising an eyebrow to the camera.)

He had a million papers to write and proposals to draft, but it all tumbled aside when he was mouthing his way down Eiji’s body, drawing soft cries from Eiji’s throat. Even in the chill of winter, Eiji’s hands were warm. In the sticky summer, they smoothed over Sing’s face cool and soft, a finger bending the shell of his ear.

When Eiji wanted to spend the night alone, he kept the door to his room firmly closed, usually before an early flight or a long show or simply when Sing got home late. But if it stayed cracked open, Sing slid through, stripped off his clothes, and eased into bed, next to Eiji’s curled body. Even if they never touched, the scent of him, his warmth and faint breathing, the shape of his shoulders sloped under the sheets, the murky black of his hair streaking the pillow, it all comforted Sing and brought him home.

Then when Sing was working late, catching up after the trip, he found a message on his phone. “Sing, I need some time away from you,” Eiji said. “I can’t explain and I can’t sleep with you right now. It’s my problem and I need to clear my head. I’m so sorry.” The phone beeped and told him he had no more new messages. Sing looked at it blankly, consumed by the blood rushing in his ears. When he got to the house, the door to Eiji’s bedroom was closed. They didn’t talk about it in the morning. Eiji had an early meeting with a publisher and Sing had to run to make it to work on time. They didn’t talk about it that night either. Eiji holed up in his darkroom and Sing went out to drink with friends. He was terrified of seeing Eiji’s face.

The whole week, the door was closed every night. 

Finally, desperation took him. _ Eiji must have forgotten _ , Sing thought _ . He must not remember our pact, the way I can make him feel _. He opened the closed door and slipped into the deepened dark. The street light slanted through the lines of the blinds. He stood there for a moment, just watching the faint Eiji-shape gradually sharpen as his eyes adjusted. Eiji didn’t move. Sing gingerly moved to the other side of the bed, lay down, inhaled the scent of the pillow. His heart surged and curled around this familiar sanctuary, huddled there.

Sometime later, he awoke to Eiji’s absence, the bare place on the other side of the bed. Panic split him. Through the door and into the kitchen he went. Eiji sat by the window with a blue mug clutched in his fingers. He glanced up at sing’s footsteps.

Sing stilled and watched him, but couldn’t read Eiji in the dark. “Sorry,” he blurted.

Eiji gave him a scrap of a smile. “Can you sleep in your own bed tonight?”

Sing nodded and wrenched his eyes shut, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. “I just…” He crossed the kitchen and crouched low before Eiji, looking up into his face. He touched the mug, Eiji’s hands. Eiji said nothing, his mouth still, his eyes large and trusting, like Buddy’s, but so hidden.

“What did I do?” Sing whispered.

“Nothing... Everything,” Eiji said. “You did _ everything _ for me.” The mug rolled into his lap. He covered Sing’s hands with his own. “But I’m not for you. I tried to be for you…but it’s not right. How can I say this…?” His hands slid up to hold Sing’s wrists.

Sing shook off his touch in one movement, reached up and grabbed Eiji’s shoulders hard. “I don’t understand.” His voice came cracked and uneven. His hands moved up the sides of Eiji’s neck to hold his face. 

Eiji blinked, and his eyes filled bright, blurred. “You are always special to me. But I don’t feel the same as you. It’s hurting us both. I’m keeping you trapped here like this because I don’t want to let you go. It’s not right for us.” He sniffed, as Sing’s thumb smeared a tear across his face. “Don’t hate me. Please stay my friend.”

-

(Sing went back to the house on Long Island, but the sheets on the furniture looked like shrouds and the empty spaces stretched on forever. A thick layer of dust blurred it all. He shut the door and returned to Eiji’s apartment, to his lonely room, to Eiji and Buddy. He stayed there for 1.5 years.)

-

Eiji was often gone on trips and tours. He published a book collection on New York and did a signing tour in several cities. When he was home, they drank coffee at the street cafe, reading the newspaper and watching tourists, yellow cabs, and women in long brown or black boots. Eiji leaned back and smiled down at the funnies page.

Sing wondered if it would be less painful if it had all never happened, if he had never kissed Eiji in the hallway, if he were still the hopeless, hungry young fool. Now he knew keenly what he lacked and the space consumed him.

-

_ “I wish there was a button to push to speed up time and grow up--get all the experience and wisdom I need right now,” _ Akira wrote. _ “Sometimes I feel so dumb and awkward and everything is too intense. When did you learn to stay cool and calm? When did you grow out of making everything a crisis in you head? Or does this even apply to you? I’m tired of being so self-conscious all the time. Tell me it passes quickly and it all gets better.” _

Sing couldn’t write back that he’d had no time to be an awkward and anxious teen because he has been too busy ducking gang ambushes and garroting other young killers with sharp wire by the time he was fourteen. He’d never known Akira’s normal kind of childhood and adolescence. But it was clear she was feeling low for some reason and need reassurance.

“_ It passes quickly and it gets better,” _ he wrote. _ “The fact that you realize much of your trouble is in your head is a sign of your maturity. Is there anything specific that you’re dealing with? If you need a wise and responsible adult to confide in, go to your parents or your uncle, but know that I will always be a sympathetic ear for you, even if I don’t have a solution.” _

_ “Just teen girl drama,” _ she responded. _ “I got mixed up in a doomed relationship but I guess I knew it wouldn’t work out from the start. Still hurts though. I just want to move on. Any cures for heartbreak? Sorry to make you read about my silly little life. How are you and Okumura-san and Buddy? Are the leaves changing there yet? Mom wants to go to Kyoto in October, but it sounds boring to me. Wish I could go see you in NYC instead.” _

_ “Heartbreak is never silly or stupid,” _ Sing declared. _ “If I had an instant cure, I’d use it on myself. I can tell you time makes it less intense and distracting yourself will help you from wallowing. It’s ok to feel bad, just don’t let it take over. Life goes on. Go to Kyoto! We are all good here and, yes, the leaves are changing colors and the air is getting colder. Wish you could come to NYC too. Maybe after high school graduation? Keep up your grades to get points with mom and dad.” _

-

Sing threw himself into work, taking on all the projects he could. He spent Thanksgiving in Taiwan and missed the big dinner at Max and Jessica’s house. It was better this way. He didn’t sleep at all that night, just read through finance reports with the TV droning in the background. Silence crushed him. He understood why Yut Lung had taken to drinking, but he didn’t want to lose himself that way.

Finally, he walked the crackling streets until it was time to catch his flight and his mind was a blur of nothing. He slept on the plane and woke up to a groggy arrival back at JFK.

-

_ “I’ve decided to devote myself to studying English,” _ Akira said. _ “Of course, I’m already doing that, but I really need to buckle down and actually use it regularly. From now on, half my letters will be in Japanese and the other half in English, as best I can. Please bear with me.” _ She followed this with a stilted but mostly understandable translation plus some added details about a movie she’d seen and the weather forecast. It was a good start, Sing decided. Of course, writing with a dictionary would never make her fluent, but he applauded her will.

On her seventeenth birthday, they arranged to talk on the phone--an excessively expensive international call, but Sing had money after all. Akira’s voice was lower than he remembered and she seemed alternately shy and excited to speak with him. It was a little awkward at first, but he gradually drew her out with some questions and jokes about school and family.

“Is Uncle Ibe still going senile?”

“He’s never going to retire,” she complained. “He nearly broke his neck photographing mountain climbers in Nagano. You can’t tell him he’s too old for it.”

“Well, he’s only in his fifties, right?” Sing said, doing some quick mental math. “That may seem old to you--in fact, he’s ancient--but it’s hardly retirement age.”

“I feel old,” Akira moaned. “I’ll be an adult next year and what have I done with my life?”

“I’ll be twenty-eight next year and I’ve done nothing,” Sing admitted. Not for the first time, it struck him how little his work contributed to anything meaningful. He always justified it to support the people in his life, but he could be doing anything else.

“You’re a successful businessman,” Akira countered. “That’s not nothing.”

_ I’m a successful criminal _ , Sing thought. _ I always have been. I may wear a suit, but that doesn’t change the fact that our business deals skirt the edges of legality or ignore it completely. _

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said. “What do you want to accomplish Aki-chan?”

She paused for a moment. “I want to be a translator or interpreter, but I know that’s a long way off. If I can help someone communicate and bridge that gap between understanding another person, I’ll be happy. Mostly, though, I just want to live in New York.”

“Really? You want to be in this stinky, crazy city?”

“Yeah. That summer with you and Okumura-san was the best of my life,” she said. “Maybe I’m remembering it better than it was, but I really loved it there and I want to go back.”

“You’ll be back,” he said softly. “I just hope it doesn’t disappoint you this time around.”

“Impossible,” she said firmly in heavily accented English.

“Ok,” Sing said with a grin, switching to English as well. “Then we’d better practice and prepare for your impending return to the Big Apple.”

“_ Nani _?”

-

Eventually, Sing moved into the house in Long Island. It was time. Living with Eiji had long ceased to be a comfort for either of them. The air was thick with unspoken anguish--Sing’s stubborn desire and Eiji’s guilt and concern. They moved around it like acrobats, masking the tension with easy conversation and banter. But it wasn’t easy--not for Sing--and he knew staying with Eiji was only burning them both in the long run._ It’s getting better, _ he thought sometimes, but then Eiji would smile with his crinkling eyes or speak in that soft, low voice, and Sing would fall deep all over again.

Distance, he told himself, was the key to healing. He didn’t want distance. He wanted Akira’s magical cure for heartbreak. He wanted Eiji body and soul. But he didn’t have either.

He tried to exorcise his pain with sex, meeting random women and men at clubs and bars. But it only took a few encounters to realize that after the endorphins of orgasm faded, he just felt empty and foolish. These beautiful strangers couldn’t take away his anguish and they sure as hell could never replace Eiji.

-

Yut Lung had no sympathy for Sing, watching him push himself to distraction.

One day as they were meeting in his office, he stalked around the desk and confronted Sing face to face.

“You look like shit. Snap out of it already. I know you moved out. Just man up and move _ on _ for god’s sake.”

“It’s none of your business,” Sing shot back, stiffening before his close and withering gaze.

Yut Lung sneered. “What is it about that naïve fool that makes great men throw their lives away for him?”

Sing shot him a hard glare. Yut-Lung met it with a smile like an open challenge. “Is he such a great fuck? Does he make you feel like God?”

“Shut up!” Sing snarled. Rage boiled up his throat.

“You’re pathetic,” Yut Lung growled. He flattened himself against the wall as Sing stalked closer, but his head stayed up, eyes dark, lips parted. “Brilliant, rich, deadly, full of endless possibilities, and you’re stuck here pining over an unrequited crush like a child.”

Sing’s hands flew up to close around his throat. Yut Lung’s pulse shuddered and raced under his palm.

“He’s worthless,” Yut Lung hissed, eyes wide with a feverish sheen. “He’s nothing.”

Sing released his throat and dug a hand into Yut Lung’s thick hair high on his scalp, pressing his head into the wall. “What do you want, goddammit?” He knew, but he wanted to hear it. His head felt tight and hot.

Yut Lung’s hands came up to grab Sing’s shirt, trying to pull him down. “Come…”

But Sing refused to bend into him. He stood steady as a rock and watched Yut Lung’s face twist with helpless humiliation.

“Fuck you!” Yut Lung spat. “I’ll—“

Sing shifted and grabbed Yut Lung’s hips, forcing his thighs forward and up. His hands supported Yut Lung’s lower back, pulled flush against his waist. Yut Lung’s legs wrapped around Sing and his back and head fell against the wood. “you—“ he gasped, mouth falling open. Sing gripped his ass and Yut Lung rolled against him. “God, yes,” Yut Lung hissed, breathing hard. ‘Just like this—against the wall, yes.” He red earring was a single drop of blood.

Sing didn’t understand himself. He was blind and feverish and frantic for the touch of skin, the heat and rhythm. And Yut Lung’s trousers came off so easily and he said such crazy, filthy things while they fucked, insulting Sing and his elders and the various deities, cursing himself.

And that’s how it began, his brief and strange intimacy with the crime lord. Yut Lung was nothing like Eiji. He was small and light and fine-boned as a girl. He wanted it hard and rough, in the greenhouse, on the formal table, his desks, before the shrines of his ancestors. He shouted angry incentives, “faster, more, harder you son of a dog!” If Sing seemed too gentle or tried foreplay, Yut Lung slapped him and demanded that he “fuck like a man.” He cursed Sing in classical Chinese. He didn’t want sex, Sing realized, he wanted punishment for himself and Sing as well. He punished them both with this act, then sent Sing away with a haughty flourish. Even sweat-soaked and smeared with various fluids, boneless with satisfaction, he could lift himself up and bark a command for Sing to leave immediately. It was bizarre and painful and crazy, but Sing needed it, craved it in the dark depths of himself. Fucking Yut-Lung blurred the boundaries of reality and took Sing out of his own head, for a brief time. _This is all we need_, he thought morosely. _This is all we deserve._


	2. Chapter 2

_The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places._

-Ernest Hemingway, _A Farewell to Arms_

There was a hotel in Hong Kong that Yut-Lung liked. The huge glass windows gave him a sprawling view of endless rooftops. Here, above everything, he could view the world from afar.

Sing stood and looked through the heavy plate glass to the gray and white and shining surfaces of the city. On one rooftop, a family was growing plants in pots. While the father watered his garden, a tiny girl was stomping around, trying to kill bugs. Sing watched her for a while.

Sitting on the bed, Yut Lung ended his phone call with a smooth but firm farewell. Sing heard the click as he set it on the nightstand. It was very quiet here. Even the bustling city outside looked distant and unreal. “Come here,” Yut Lung said.

Sing didn’t respond, but he felt the pull in his body, like a physical force. Sparks of heat ran up his nerves and his heart began to race. Still, he didn’t move, as though this little resistance could maintain his dignity.

He didn’t hear any footsteps behind him, but firm, graceful hands touched his hips, slipped round to his front to unfasten his belt. It slid free and fell to the carpet like a dead snake. Yut Lung’s hands pulled his shirt free and glided over his stomach. His teeth pressed into Sing’s back through the thin fabric.

Sing wanted to say something but he knew they wouldn’t talk. And already the sweet red mist of lust was flooding his mind, reducing his thoughts to the ache in his groin and Yut Lung’s hot mouth.

He turned and pushed Yut Lung in staggering steps back to the bed. Yut Lung sprawled across it, barefoot and wearing a dark, elaborate cheongsam with a million buttons. Sing just rucked the top up to Yut Lung’s armpits, baring the pale skin on his torso and chest. He bit a rosy nipple and felt Yut Lung gasp and arch. The trousers were easier to pull off, revealing slender legs and delicate ankles.

Yut Lung only ascquieced to a blow job when Sing pinned his hips down with bruising force and used his teeth to make it more pain than pleasure. Then, while he was writhing and panting, before he could come, he said “Enough!” and Sing roughly flipped his body, turning Yut Lung face-first into the sheets.

Yut Lung moaned and lifted his ass. He didn’t like much prep, but Sing was determined to apply lube.

“Hurry the fuck up!,” Yut Lung shouted. Sing pulled down his own slacks, knelt on the bed, pushed Yut Lung’s face into the sheets and fucked him until he screamed. Fast and hard and rough to breaking. The violent rush of pleasure crashing through him blacked out the world. Release left them both collapsed together, gasping.

Then a knock on the door. “Mr. Lee? Are you alright?” 

“Yes,” Yut Lung rasped to the bodyguard outside the door. His rib cage flexed with each hard breath. “Mr. Soo-Ling was just leaving.” 

Sing forced his shaking limbs to action, to climb out of bed and dress. He had never removed his shirt, so it didn’t take long. 

Yut Lung turned on his back and stretched his arms out in luxurious satisfaction. “Seven-thirty at the airport,” he reminded Sing. 

Sing grunted. He couldn’t even manage a nod. Weariness and anger sunk deep into his bones. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. 

In his own room, he changed into gym shorts and a t-shirt and ran through the city streets like a fool, feet drumming into the pavement in a steady rhythm. _One-two-one-two_ he counted. It became the beat of his breaths and the blood pounding in his ears. It drowned out all the dark thoughts crowding his head, suffocated his pain. 

Sometime in the neon darkness between night and morning, he returned to his hotel room, showered, and packed for the long flight home.

-

The Lee conglomerate mixed legitimate and illegitimate business freely on three continents. They had real-estate holdings, stock shares, and factories. They also transported illegal drugs and weapons. It was small scale compared to the other operations under their umbrella, but brought in the most income and the most risks. They had never suffered any major losses to law enforcement, thanks to generous bribes and an expansive collection of high-paid lawyers, but rival gangs and cartels were always rising up, always hungry to gobble up more of the market. These younger kingpins were reckless and often stupid, but they were always there, like wasps creeping in through every crack in the house. 

Sing didn’t do the killings anymore. He was far too valuable an investment for that, But he’d seen blood spilled, distributors slaughtered, and small-time thugs butchered in retribution. They usually cleaned up the gore before he got there. Things were a little more civilized on this level, but greed and desperation still crackled in the air, skittering on the edge of violence. 

They had both grown up from the bottom, he and Yut Lung. Violence and the promise of loss had ruled every day of their young lives. Sing had clawed and fought for every scrap of control he could get as a scrawny street kid in a vicious gang. Yut Lung had watched his older half brothers rape his mother, then slowly endured years as a pampered doll before killing almost his entire family. God only knew what he had suffered in the meantime. Neither of them ever wanted to go back to those lives, but neither could they escape the pull of the underworld and everything it offered. Power promised escape from fear and hardship, but the more power you had, the more people wanted to take you down. 

They sat across from each other in the plush booth, silent. New York sweltered outside, but the air-conditioned restaurant was a world removed. Yut-Lung picked at his dumplings, tearing them with his chopsticks. His eyes were shadowed and blurred. His restless motions barely concealed the tremors in his hands. He drained his cup of rice wine and motioned for more. 

_We’re dying in inches_, Sing thought, ignoring his own cup. The expensive dim sum sat in his belly like little stones. 

“Drink something,” Yut-Lung murmured as his own glass was filled. “You could use a little color in that dour face.” 

“No thanks,” Sing said. “The meeting’s starting soon. We’d better go.” 

“Yes,” Yut-Lung grunted. “Get my briefcase.” 

They exited the restaurant through the back, a typical precaution. The street light across the road was out, Sing noticed, but it didn’t register fast enough. 

A muzzle flash, and he instinctively twisted his torso to move the briefcase up like a shield. It slowed but didn’t stop the bullet that hit his side. Through a rush of pain, he pushed Yut Lung down and covered him, ducking his own head. The bodyguards by the car scrambled into action. Sing heard five shots, then just the shouts of the bodyguards and Yut Lung’s heavy breaths. 

When he turned his head, he saw one guard slumped against the car, hands pressed to his bleeding gut. The other was gone, disappeared into the shadows. The driver got out of the car in a crouch and looked to Sing with terror on his face. 

“Stay down, Zhang,” Sing hissed. 

Sing pulled himself off a shivering but unhurt Yut Lung and ran to the car to get the fallen guard’s gun, cursing himself for not carrying his own. he had never been the best shot, preferring more physical means like wires and knives for killing. But the warm gun made him feel safer. He rounded the car, half-crouched, peering into the darkness. 

The uninjured guard was bent over the body of a fallen man whose face was covered with a ski mask. 

“I got him,” the guard said in a shaky voice. Sing wondered how much experience he really had. 

“Any others?” Sing asked sharply. 

“I heard footsteps, but they got away.” 

Sing gritted his teeth. His side blazed with agony. “Secure the vehicle and get the boss to safety. He turned to Zhang. “Call the doctor.” 

He scanned the periphery but didn’t see any signs of others. The guard rushed to help a shaken Yut Lung into the car. It had been a long time since there was an attempt on his life, Sing realized. He still didn’t know if Yut Lung had staged that previous assassination attempt in an effort to get Blanca’s services. Whatever the case, this shooter was for real. 

Sing and the injured guard ended up at a safe house with a scruffy mob doctor to clean their wounds and stitch them up. In the end, the other man had to go to a real hospital for his gut wound while Sing got off relatively easy: a few days of bed rest and limited movement for a month. 

He stayed with Eiji who canceled all his appointments and fussed and pampered. It was near heaven--near enough to hurt because he knew it couldn’t last. Eiji was affectionate and kind because he was Eiji. He had tended the wounds of Ash and the entire gang, when they got hurt. Of course, it was different now. They were all grownups and the times of gang warfare should be long past, dead with Ash. 

Eiji said, “You need to get out, Sing,” with the intensity he rarely used. His gaze was cool and heavy as an anvil. “I never want to see you like this again. I never want to think about who is shooting at you.” 

“They were shooting at Yut Lung,” Sing protested weakly. 

“Then he needs to get out too,” Eiji declared. His nostrils flared and his black brows lowered. “I don’t care what the hell happens to him, but he means something to you. If you want to save him, you have to convince him to leave it all behind.” 

Sing shook his head slowly. It would never happen. Yut Lung had worked his entire life to get to where he was. 

“Promise me you’ll leave,” Eiji demanded, and Sing was a little shocked to see tears in his eyes. His face was flushed with emotion. 

“I’ll try,” Sing said, and then he knew he truly would. He was tired. He was sick of death. And the weight of all those bodies crushed him. He wanted escape. “Not try. I will, Eiji, I will leave.”

-

When he told Yut Lung this, it went as well as might be expected. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Yut Lung said harshly. “I forbid it. I made you what you are and if you think I’m just going to throw away all the time and money invested in you, you’re _insane_.” He hovered between outraged and terrified. 

“I made a lot of money for you,” Sing said softly, “I gave a lot of time to your business. And now, I’m done. I need a different life.” 

“You are my second-in-command, my successor,” Yut Lung said. “And now you want to go back to scrambling at the bottom? One scare and you’re running away like a beaten dog? You used to eat thugs like that shooter for breakfast.” 

“Not any more,” Sing said firmly. “I’m finished with that.” 

“You’re never finished!” Yut Lung shouted. “No one ever washes blood off their hands and walks away to happily ever after. Ash tried it, and look where he is now. You are not going to die of old age in bed next to your beloved. It will never happen.” 

“What are you going to do?” Sing demanded. “Are you gonna put out a hit on me? Gonna shoot me before I leave this room? Just how desperate are you?” 

Yut Lung stared at him, seeming to realize it was actually happening. _He’s like glass_, Sing thought, _cold, sharp, and fragile_. 

“You could leave too,” Sing said, barely over a whisper. “Or change the business. It doesn’t have to be like this forever.” 

Yut Lung’s eyes narrowed. “Get out,” he said at last, soft and deadly. “Don’t even think about crawling back.” His face was a mask of disdain. “After all this time...you have severely disappointed me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Sing said. And he was. Sorry for all the unspoken things, sorry for the pain they had inflicted on each other when they were both lonely and hurting. Sorry for Yut Lung’s splintered past and uncertain future. Sorry to leave him like this, so alone in his intricate mansion. Years ago in the garden, Yut Lung had said, _“Some things are meant to stay broken.”_ It echoed in Sing’s head as he exited the pristine compound for the last time. 

-

It was not hard to find work. Sure, Sing didn’t make the same kind of money he’d had as a criminal, but with a Harvard degree in business, there was no shortage of decent jobs available. Sing started in middle-management at a tech company and already had a promotion in the first six months. 

He didn’t spend a lot of time at the Long Island house, but tried to make time for his friends who had fallen out of his life somewhat in the past year, as he had tried to work Eiji out of his system. Jessica and Max were remodeling their house, now that Michael was off to college and they always welcomed an extra pair of hands. Bones and Kong had started a gym together and liked to hit up Sing for financial and management advice. It was a total dump, but it had potential, he assured them. 

When Eiji went traveling around Europe for a photo story, Sing looked after Buddy. They went for runs in the park and watched the ducks together by the pond. When Eiji got back, they all went out for ice cream and even got Buddy half a scoop of sherbert. 

Standing and licking at a dripping cone of mint chocolate-chip as Eiji related a story about a pub in Edinburgh, Sing marveled at how normal it all felt. He still wanted Eiji with a distant ache in his bones, but this was fine too. It didn’t burn so painfully anymore. Perhaps he would never really be truly, deeply happy again, but he felt content at last, pleased to be here in this moment on this street under the rustling elm trees. Buddy nudged Sing’s knee with his head, pleading for more ice cream. Sing just petted him, lifting one silky ear with his fingertips. Buddy’s brown eyes looked up at him, deep and thankful, as Sing stroked the top of his head. 

“It’s a nice day,” he said.

-

Akira sent pictures of a recent trip to Yakushima: gray monkeys and tiny deer and ancient cedars that had seen thousands of years. She posed in one photo with her mother next to a huge tree trunk. Neither of them smiled with their mouths, but Akira had a spark of joy in her eyes. Her hair was long and wavy now. She wore a loose dress over a t-shirt with hiking boots and a wide-brimmed hat. He was slightly alarmed at how adult she looked, with her pale hands folded neatly in front of her. 

A surge of sadness came over him at the loss of the scabby-kneed little Aki-chan holding an oversized bear, now gone forever. But that’s what happened with kids. They grew up. He looked at the picture again. She would have cute children someday, he thought. She would have a beautiful family. 

-

The new millennium approached and Sing neared the end of his twenties. It was hard to believe how far he had come and how little he resembled the little boy from Chinatown with a chip on his shoulder and the Flying Dragon in his pocket. He still spent time with Eiji and other friends, but he had a new group of guys from work that he liked to hang out with. He started casually dating a cute programmer who got him into movies and trivia nights. His life became nearly normal, in many ways. He never heard from Yut Lung. 

On his next phone call with Akira, now in her second year of college, she dropped a bombshell. “I’m studying abroad in New York next year!” She would spend her junior year at City College, a tremendous expense, he expected, but a great opportunity for her future career.

When he shared the news with Eiji, they were at a cafe in Brooklyn where Eiji was working. “She couldn’t stay away,” Eiji said. “You made New York a special place for her.”

“So did you,” Sing pointed out. “She had a major crush on you, as I remember.” 

“I think the focus of her attention has shifted,” Eiji said, smiling slightly. “You showed her the best side of the city. You wrote her letters. You’re the one she’s always talking to after all these years. You may have to fend off her crush this time around.” 

Sing laughed. “To a college girl, I’m geriatric. I’m always gonna be her uncle. There’s no way she has any interest in me.”

-

When the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve and Y2K never happened, Sing was at a party in Queens, watching people get drunk. He wished he’d stayed home with Eiji to help comfort Buddy during the noisy part of the night. He found his date engaged in a lively discussion about some video game or another. They exchanged a belated countdown kiss and the phone in Sing’s pocket buzzed. 

He excused himself and answered. It was Zhang, a driver from the Lee Corporation who he’d known for years. They hadn’t spoken since he’d left the group. 

“Happy New Year,” Zhang said gruffly. “I didn’t know if anyone had told you about Mr. Lee, so I thought I’d check.” 

“What about him?” Sing said, covering his other ear to block out the noise of the party. “Did something happen?” 

“Yeah,” a deep breath. “A bunch of guys from the Chen cartel shot up his car in Hong Kong. They’re all gone.” 

“Who’s gone?” Sing demanded roughly. His heart thundered in his head. 

“Everyone. Mr. Lee, the bodyguards, the chauffeur, the people on the street. They had automatic rifles and they were spraying bullets like water. Our guys eventually tracked down the gunmen and took them out. They’re all gone.” 

Sing gripped the phone hard. “I see,” he murmured, although he didn’t, not at all. 

“Lo Qin is in charge now, but they’re not happy about it. He’ll definitely have challengers. Would be great if you could come back. Everyone looked up to you.” 

Sing clenched his eyes shut. “Thanks for letting me know, Zhang. I gotta go now.”

-

No one would understand. Eiji, Max, Alex and the gang--they all saw Yut Lung as the arrogant asshole who had tried to kill Ash at every opportunity. They’d say ‘_good riddance_’ if they knew he’d been murdered. He’d known what he was getting into after all. Live by the sword, die by the sword, and all that. 

They didn’t know the scared little boy behind the freezing gaze. They didn’t see how hard Yut Lung tried to avoid any sign of weakness. He had resented Ash because Ash was free in ways he could only dream of. Sing had pitied Yut Lung at first. Then he had grown to respect the man’s self-control, his endurance in spite of tragedy. Yut Lung was all icy exterior with a blazing hot interior. He had a razor-sharp mind and a passion and intensity that no one could equal. Even hyper-genius Ash had fallen prey to one of his assassins. 

Sing knew he had a lot of reasons to hate Yut Lung. But he didn’t. 

He stopped by the liquor store the next day and got a green bottle of rice wine--not the fancy stuff Yut Lung drank, but close enough. When it was empty and he felt nothing, not even the floor beneath his feet, he lay down and gave up. The room spun around him continuously, but he was sunk deep in a dark, safe place where nothing mattered. 

Several hours later, he awoke, still drunk. He drank a painkiller with two glasses of water, and went to bed. He slept fitfully, woke again, showered, and padded into the main room. The empty bottle sat on the low table in the center of the room. He rinsed it out, set it under the sink, and stood to lean on the counter. Sun streamed through the window, warming him in the cold, cold house. 

-

Akira arrived in early spring. Sing met her at the airport and treated her to a coffee outside the concourse. She looked tired but strung with excitement, turning her head this way and that to take in the surroundings. Her hair was in two braids pinned like a crown and she wore a long violet-blue top over dark jeans. She had all the wonder of youth glowing inside her. 

“It’s just like I remembered,” she sighed, wrapping her hands around her mug. 

“What? The airport?” Sing teased. “Still crowded and shitty as always.” 

“It’s just a feeling,” she said, “you wouldn’t understand because you’ve always lived here. There’s an energy in New York that you just can’t get in Japan. Not even Tokyo.” 

They took a cab to her campus and wheeled luggage to her dorm. She shared a room with a student from Malaysia who hadn’t arrived yet. Sing offered her time to unpack, but she wanted to walk around the grounds. The cherry trees were blooming pale, lacy umbrellas over the green lawns. A chill breeze made them clutch their jackets close, but even cynical old Sing was glad to be out. It brought back his own school days when studying economics on a sunny bench by a stone fountain was the best way to spend an afternoon. He was pleased that Akira could experience it. 

They circled around the library and rested a while by a little pond choked with reedy grass. Akira didn’t seem to want to talk much. She stared out into the glimmers of sun on the water. After a while, she leaned her head on Sing’s shoulder lightly and he realized how exhausted she must be. 

“Let’s get you back to your room,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. 

“Ok,” Akira murmured. She leaned into his body the whole way back. 

-

They had dinner with Eiji the following day. He made soba and tempura in his little kitchen with Sing’s help while Akira played with Buddy. She wanted to take endless pictures of everyone and everything, meticulously documenting the experience. 

“I really missed your cooking,” she said as they all sat down to eat. 

“Really?” Eiji said, surprised. “I’m sure your mother’s food is better.” 

“Oh, it is,” Akira acknowledged. “But when you two are cooking you look so happy. It makes me happy. And this apartment just feels brighter and calmer than any place else.” 

Sing exchanged a look with Eiji. “I don’t live here anymore,” he said, “so we don’t get to cook together often. I think we’re just really glad to have you here again. Feels like old times.” 

“Yeah,” Akira said. “But it’s different, isn’t it? I can’t say why.” 

“Maybe your memories are affected by nostalgia,” Eiji suggested. “You see the world differently as an adult.” 

“Well, of course,” Akira said. “I can never go back to that time.” She gazed at the two men, chin propped on her hands. “But I’m glad to have a new perspective too.” The half-smile she gave them puzzled Sing. 

At the end of the night, he walked her to the subway station. 

“Something changed between you two,” she said. “You feel more settled now, not so tense and sad. I’m glad.” 

Sing studied her profile for clues. “Eiji and me...we’re still good friends. But we don’t have the same relationship we used to.” 

“Definitely,” she agreed. She turned to look at him at the top of the steps. “Is that a good thing?” 

“It’s all right,” he said, pushing hands into his pockets. It was no use skirting the truth. She wasn’t a kid. “Everyone needs someone special. We just weren’t that person for each other. I didn’t like that realization, but I learned to get used to it in time.” 

“Do you have someone special now?” Akira asked, leaning faux-casually against the railing. 

“You’d know if I did,” Sing replied honestly. “I was actually dating someone from work for a while, but when they moved away for another job, we decided to break up.” 

“Well...I don’t have anyone either,” Akira blurted. 

Sing grinned. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding nice American university boys to date. You’ll have your pick of the herd. Maybe you can meet up with Michaal again. You remember the kid at the gallery? He’s around the same age.” 

Akira shrugged. “We’ll see.” She sighed and pulled her purse up her shoulder. “Guess I’d better go. Call me tomorrow?” 

Sing nodded. “Count on it.” 

-

Somehow she convinced him to take her to his gym in the mornings so that she could get “big American muscles” and they did workouts together, gradually building her strength. It was fun to be a personal trainer, Sing thought. Akira was game for anything, so he had to watch closely to make sure he wasn’t pushing her too far.

They spotted each other lifting weights and it became twice as enjoyable for Sing. With the clink of metal, the smell of sweat and rubber, and her low voice counting his reps and calling out encouragement. They alternated between counting in English, Japanese, and Mandarin, which still delighted her. Other gym goers who had never acknowledged Sing before, smiled at them and greeted them enthusiastically. After that, they had protein shakes before he started work and she went off to school.

In the evenings, they often met to practice English and just walk around town. He pushed her talk to street vendors and shop-keepers, much to her embarrassment. But she always beamed with pride after a successful interaction, even when her face was bright red. 

They regularly ate at Nadia Wong’s shop in Chinatown. It wasn’t the fanciest place but it had the best noodles and Charlie and Nadia’s kids were _the _cutest. The oldest boy carefully filled their water glasses with arms that looked too small to hold the big pitcher. But he never spilled a drop. If Nadia had time, she would come out and chat, bringing the toddler girl. There were times when Sing wanted to reminisce about Shorter, but he didn’t want to dredge up bad memories, especially with Akira and the children there. 

When he and Akira ate dinner together at various restaurants, he realized most people thought they were a couple. It amused him, but he also wondered if it was a little creepy for a thirty year-old man to be hanging out with a girl ten years younger. But a casual observer wouldn’t notice the age difference, and anyway, it was totally innocent after all. 

-

After Akira’s first term finished successfully, they celebrated by seeing The Lion King on Broadway. She was ecstatic, clutching his hand throughout, moved from tears to joyous laughter. Even cynical Sing was swept up in the leaping gazelles, elaborate costumes, and swelling musical numbers. 

Later, they had a picnic in the park with onigiri and sliced fruit and bottled lemonade. The late-summer sun glowed against their backs. A big family nearby blasted pop music and raced around after frisbees. A couple made out on a blanket under an oak tree. Sing and Akira ate and sipped their lemonade in silence, soaking in the world around. A man in a backward baseball cap ran across the grass in front of them, yanked by the leash of his eager rottweiler. 

Akira said, “Let’s freeze time here,” and they sat in silence for several minutes. But the world didn’t freeze. It kept rolling on, running to the sunset. Akira reached out and held his hand again, not looking at him. 

“This is just the start,” he said inadequately. “You don’t have to worry about years slipping away just yet.” 

“I know,” she murmured. “It’s not years I’m worried about losing.” Her hand was slim but strong. She had a quiet certainty in her gentle grip. 

_I’m not going anywhere_, he wanted to say. But of course, _she _was. Her visa only lasted a year and she was drinking in every moment. 

-

They finally braved the humid, crowded ferry ride to the statue of liberty. It was packed with sweating tourists. Akira snapped multiple photos as they approached. Sing took a picture of her with the figure of Lady Liberty in the background. Then she took a photo of him with the towering symbol behind him. Others were jostling for a place, so Sing said they didn’t need a picture together, much to Akira’s disappointment. She was quiet the whole way back. Sloshing water and the growl of the ship’s engine combined with the low roar of other voices made it difficult to speak anyway. 

-

Summer was fading with the browned grass and dried leaves curling on trees. On a humid day in late August, he went to a pool party hosted by one of Akira’s friends from college. It was mostly skinny girls pretending to be sophisticated by wearing floppy hats and lacy slip dresses over their swimsuits as they sipped wine coolers. A few schlubby boyfriends lingered around, slurping Coors and laughing too loud. 

Akira’s dress was blue and gold and appropriately summery. Her bare shoulders were tanned like an American--not the porcelain pale Japanese ideal. She led Sing around the patio, introducing him to everyone, and he tried to contain his amusement at their wide-eyed reactions. 

“You never said he was such a hottie,” Michelle (or Rochelle?) said with a giggle. They all laughed together. Akira’s face flushed. She grabbed another wine cooler from the bucket of ice. 

Somehow Sing ended up chatting with a group of frat boys about sports and entertained himself by prolonging it as long as possible, making generic remarks to cover the fact that he didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. 

Akira was sitting with a cluster of girls, her voice drowned out in their raucous conversation. At some point, he thought he saw them all take shots of something. He frowned to himself and worked his way out of the interaction with the boys with a blanket comment like “Here’s to another memorable season.” 

He sidled up to Akira and leaned down to speak close to her ear. “Can I talk to you?” 

“Of course!” she chirped. They meandered inside the house to a quiet hallway. 

Akira leaned against the wall. She was tipsy, smiling, beaming with happiness. A gleam of sweat shone on her upper lip and her eyes were soft and trusting. 

“Are you twenty-one yet?” he asked gingerly. 

“I will be soon,” she replied. “Will I be old enough for you then?” 

“Old enough for what?” he asked, on edge. 

“For this.” She lifted her hand and touched the side of his face, brushing fingers over his lips. 

Sing jerked away instinctively, startled. His mind was racing, torn between two instincts and terrified. “No.” 

He turned, unable to look at her face, and started walking. He went through a door, up some steps to the veranda overlooking the neighborhood. He leaned over the polished railing and looked down over wide roofs bathed in the glow of the sinking sun. An ambulance screamed in the distance. 

So...he did want her, and he hadn’t known it until now, and it horrified him. 

He heard the door open and shut. Footsteps to his back. “I’m sorry,” Akira said close behind him. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t hate me.” 

It sounded so much like Eiji that he squeezed his eyes shut against the rush of emotions. “It can’t be like that with us,” he said. “You’re a kid--you _were_ a kid--and I’m so old.” 

Akira didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she came and leaning against the railing beside him, keeping a distance. “Will I still be a kid when I’m forty and you’re fifty? Will it still be impossible then?” 

“Yes!” Sing nearly shouted. “Can you imagine what I’d say to your parents, to your uncle? ‘Hey, that little girl you sent me to look after, now that she’s older, can I date her?’ They’d lock me up!” 

Akira huffed out a breath of frustration. “Forget about everyone else. Just you and me alone in the world--do you like me?” 

“Aki…”

“No. Do you like me?” 

“It’s not right. Trust me, it seems fine now when you’re a drunk college kid. But it’s creepy, alright?” He was scrambling for excuses, sweating through his shirt. 

“I know you’re scared about what other people will think of us. I get that. I’m scared of getting rejected and ruining our friendship. But I know what I need and I don’t want to be afraid of asking for it. For me it’s worth the risk. But I’m not sure if it is for you.” 

He felt sick with indecision. He shook his head slowly, not meeting her eyes. _Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to do the right thing_. _Sometimes it hurts._

Akira was quiet for a long moment. “Okay,” she said at last. “Okay.” Then she stood and walked away. He couldn’t find her after that.

\- 

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. The glorious summer had burnt to ashes in moments. _“Why couldn’t we go one as we were?”_ he wanted to ask her. But there was no erasing the touch of her fingers on his lips or the heat gathering under his skin every time he thought of her now. It plunged him deep in turmoil. 

He took the day off work because he couldn’t concentrate on anything. But then he was forced to pace around the house, trapped in his thoughts. 

She didn’t call or text. He might have worried about her, but he suspected that, of the two of them, she was the more resilient one. 

Finally he called Eiji and arranged to meet him in the afternoon. They went to their favorite Vietnamese shop by the laundromat in Eiji’s neighborhood. Eiji got the chicken bahn mi and Sing got the spicy veggie one. But he had no appetite. He tore at the edges of the paper wrapping as they sat on a bench by the street. 

“So, Akira finally confessed her feelings for you and you’re afraid it will destroy your friendship.” Eiji summarized. 

“It already has,” Sing said with a sigh. “How am I supposed to look her in the eye after this?” 

“You’re not attracted to her at all?” 

Sing blinked. “What that got to do with it?” he demanded. “This is Aki-chan we’re talking about, remember? That tomboy chipmunk with the teddy bear? Think about how weird this is for me.” 

“This may be a little hypocritical of me to ask, but why are you always so stuck in the past?” Eiji said, tilting his head. “She’s not a child anymore and hasn’t been for some time.” 

“She’s still ten years younger,” Sing protested. “She may look up to me with some kind of puppy love, but she can’t possibly know what she’s getting into.” 

Eiji chewed on a bite of sandwich thoughtfully and swallowed. “Sing, how old were you when we first met? Thirteen? Fourteen?” 

“That's different,” Sing protested. 

“Why? Because you were a boy?” 

“Because I never was a kid, not really. I’d already had sex by then--hell, I’d already killed someone, for fuck’s sake. Aki’s not like that.” 

“And how old were you when you first desired me?” 

“That’s not what I’m talking about!” Sing said, raising his voice. 

“How would you have felt if I had told you when you were twenty that we could never be together in any physical way because I’d met you when you were underage and I was significantly older?” 

Sing seethed. “Maybe you should have. We didn’t exactly live happily-ever-after, did we? Could have spared me a major depressive episode.” 

Eiji stilled and set his sandwich in his lap. He looked out at the cars passing on the street. A flock of pigeons settled on the sidewalk in front of them in a rush of flapping wings. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you like that,” Eiji said softly. “But I don’t regret those years we were together. Just because we weren’t right for each other in the end, just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t wonderful.” He pressed his palms to his knees, dropping his head. "You must think me very fickle and cruel.” 

“I did,” Sing admitted feeling that bittersweet burn again. “I loved you so much. It gutted me. I thought I’d never be whole again.” 

“And now?” 

“I guess...I’m better,” Sing murmured. 

Eiji raised his head. “Honestly, I had suspected it wouldn’t work, but if we hadn’t tried, we’d never know. There’d always be longing and regrets. When I lost Ash, I thought ‘_That’s it for me_.’ But I healed in time. I’m deeply grateful that I took a chance with you and experienced your love fully. But I could never fully return it or commit to you. It always felt not quite right to me, like pushing together pieces that didn’t fit. We weren’t really happy, were we?” 

“I was,” Sing started to say. But then he remembered all the sleepless nights and the dragging claws of insecurity:_ Why am I not enough? _ “Well, maybe I had some issues. I never felt like you were really mine. That’s all I wanted.” 

“Maybe that’s all Akira wants,” Eiji said. “She doesn’t want to be the kid friend that you get ice cream with and pat on the head. She wants all of you. Is that so terrible?” 

“Yeah, it is. She can do so much better,” Sing said, gritting his teeth. 

“You’re handsome, financially successful, and ridiculously fit. What more would she want?” 

“She doesn’t know who I used to be and what I’m really capable of. I can’t bring that shit into her life.” 

Eiji looked up at the narrow strip of pale sky visible above the buildings. “Ash killed many, many people. Does that mean that he couldn’t be loved? I had a sheltered life in Japan before I came here. Does that mean I shouldn’t have loved him?” 

Sing shook his head silently. 

Eiji folded the paper over the remainder of his sandwich. “Maybe you should tell her about everything from that time. Either you’ll scare her away or you’ll gain the strongest ally you’ve ever known.” 

Sing felt his stomach turn with fear. “She’s too young to make that choice.” 

“I was only nineteen when I met Ash. Sing, you tried so long to make me happy. I want the same for you. But you have to believe you’re worth it. Stop trying to fix everyone. Give yourself a break. You’re not responsible for other people’s choices. Let Akira decide what she wants and accept that.” 

-

He went to campus and sat outside the block for International Students until he saw her emerge from her daily English class. Akira didn’t look pale or haunted. She was striding with confidence down the sidewalk, chatting with another Asian girl. When she saw him sitting there, she just stopped and cocked her head, considering. She had winged eyeliner that made her normally serene eyes more intense. Her mouth pursed and she said something to the friend at her side. 

As the other girl departed, Akira approached Sing where he sat on the curb. She stood in front of him and crossed her arms across her chest. Her gaze measured him carefully. “You’re here to tell me you just want to be friends, aren’t you?” 

Sing shook his head. “I’m just here to talk. There’s some stuff about me you need to know before you make a judgement.” 

“I’m not judging you,” she said. “I know you were in a gang. I know you did some things you’re not proud of. It doesn’t matter to me.” 

Sing stood. “Let’s walk for a little bit, if you have time.” 

She shrugged. “This is usually my study hour, but I can skip it.” 

“See? I’m already a bad influence,” he teased, but she didn’t crack a smile. 

The walked along the paths choked with young people and into the grove of cherry trees, now turning gold with the approach of autumn. 

“I guess you should get the whole sad story,” Sing said. “I never knew my dad, yada yada. My mom died in a car wreck when I was a kid. I had a half-brother, Lao, but he was a juvenile delinquent and we had no chance of getting into the same foster home. So we bounced around places with a gang of kids Lao knew. It was pretty hard-scrabble: begging, stealing, conning people into giving us money and food. The older kids were getting recruited by a serious gang, running errands for the Lee syndicate when they weren’t just fucking shit up. Lao joined for the chance to get out of the grind, and because there was fuck else he could do with his record.” 

Akira lifted her head into the breeze, staring into the distance. “That’s why you joined the gang too,” she said. A gust of wind shook the yellow leaves off the trees and sent them tumbling over the green lawn. 

Sing took a deep breath. The muscles in his neck were tight as though he were lifting a heavy weight. “Yeah, I got in as soon as I could. It was a messy initiation because I was only twelve and they wanted to know how hard I could be. I ambushed a kid from a rival gang--the Nguyen cartel boys. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen and he had no idea that some scrawny little boy was about to end his life. I got behind him, looped loose wire over his head and pulled tight. I had ratty old bike gloves to protect my palms, but it still hurt like a motherfucker. He choked and thrashed and I kicked at the back of his knees.” 

Akira stopped walking. She kept her face turned away from him and crossed her arms to hold herself. 

Sing’s nails bit into his palms. “I didn’t care about the morality of killing someone. I only worried that I didn’t have the strength for it in my arms and hands. But he died eventually, sputtering and crying. I was just relieved. Now I could stay with Lao and the other guys. Tough guys who could teach me how to survive and thrive. The toughest and coolest was Shorter Wong, a badass with a mohawk. You ever seen a Chinese boy with a mohawk? I thought he was the bomb. He wasn’t an asshole either--super chill, funny, and pretty smart for a street punk. But then he got mixed up with some white kid--the Corsican mafia’s golden boy, a guy named Ash Lynx. And that got Shorter killed in a way that I don’t even want to remember. I only saw his mutilated remains, but when I heard that Ash had finished him off, I couldn’t believe it. That was the beginning of the end for us all.” 

All the trees were flashing and flapping in the wind, showing the paler undersides of their leaves. The sky was gray as gravel. Akira didn’t move. “And then what?” 

Sing didn’t want to say anything else, but he knew he couldn’t stop. “Over the years, I knifed and shot more people than I want to count. Most often I used the Flying Dragon: just a length of sharp wire, with my padded gloves. Because when I felt the life draining out of them with my own hands, it felt more powerful, more real. All my years I fought for respect and power. Death gave me those. If I had the mental and physical strength to end someone, nothing could touch me.” 

A tremor ran through him. He studied the line of Akira’s back and her dark hair flying around her pale face. So small and strong and precious. 

“But I also had these annoying emotional attachments--to Lao, to Shorter, and even to that arrogant white boy and his sidekick: this dopey Japanese guy who was too kind and idealistic for his own good. I lost almost all of them. One after another, they fell and left me behind. Eiji was all I had left. So I wasn’t untouchable and neither was anyone else.” 

“But that was the end,” Akira said. “You were a teenager and you didn’t know any better. Okumura-san helped you find a different life.” 

Sing shook his head. “If you thought I left the crime world then, it’s only because I didn’t want you to know the truth. All this time I was pretending to be a regular business guy, I was working for the Chinese mafia based in New York. Yeah, I quit eventually, but it took me a long time to realize that I didn’t want to die like that. I guess I’m a really slow learner.” 

When Akira finally looked him straight in the eyes, he didn’t see any fear or disgust in her gaze, just a subdued contemplation. “You’re definitely a little slow,” she murmured. “Why did you decide to finally tell me all of this?"

“Well…” Sing drew in another deep lungful of air, steeled himself for the inevitable. “I wanted to explain why I reacted the way I did. That shit is always gonna be with me. No matter how many expensive suits I wear, I’ll always be a former criminal, a murderer. You don’t deserve that. All I want for you is to be with a decent guy from upstate who has a loving family and a bunch of awards for sports or mathlete meets. Somebody who’s only seen killing in action movies. Somebody who isn’t gonna wake up from frequent nightmares reaching for a weapon.” 

“Yeah,” Akira said. She was quiet for a long moment. Then she shook her head slowly. “I guess you want me to say that it all makes sense why you’ve been stringing me along all this time. You had a terrible childhood and a violent life.” 

“That’s not what I meant,” he protested, irritated and uncertain. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you here.” 

“No, you’re _deciding_ what’s best for me without me. You knew how I felt about you and you kept treating me like a child that you have to protect. I’m not thirteen anymore. I’m not a silly teenager. I can choose for myself, and I don’t care how damaged you are. I love you. I can take the good and the bad. But I don’t want to be around someone who is constantly spewing excuses for why we can’t be together. If you can’t handle your guilt, don’t use it to force us apart.” 

Sing stared at her, speechless. Akira’s chin was up, her eyes were burning holes in his. 

“And don’t say that you want me to be with someone else, because we both know that isn’t true. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. You really want me to say that I understand how sad your life was and that I’m shocked and moved by your story before tearfully declaring my everlasting devotion for you. Yeah, I was shocked and moved. But I’m about to walk away in order to justify your trauma. Because I know you love me and you’re just too stuck in your own issues to admit it.” 

“It’s not that simple,” he hissed. 

“Yes, it _is_ that simple. This is your last chance to be real about what you want. After this, if you still don’t have the courage to speak the truth, don’t bother me anymore. I don’t want your excuses. I just want you.” 

Sing felt his chest ache and his throat tighten. He was standing on the edge of a cliff breathing hard to still his racing heart. He blinked hard and saw Akira’s eyes glistening with tears. It was all too much. 

“Okay,” he said, choking on the word. “I’m sorry…” 

Akira inhaled sharply, half a sob. 

Sing’s tongue seemed to be blocking all the words piling up in his throat, but he couldn’t move it. 

Out of nowhere, pink frisbee sailed through the air between them and lodged in the deep mulch under a tree. There was a shriek of laughter from up the path as a skinny guy with a goatee came running a moment later, red-faced and grinning. 

“Don’t know my own strength,” he said as he trotted over to the frisbee and picked it up. Within moments he was gone again, racing back to wherever he had come from. 

Akira stared blankly after him, then wiped at her eyes. She started to laugh softly and soon Sing was too, chuckling and sniffling at the same time. 

“All right,” Sing said at last, looking at her beautiful pink face and puffy eyes, “I tried to warn you, but I guess we’re both too stubborn to play it safe.” He stepped close to Akira and wrapped his arms around her. She was warm and solid. He spoke softly into the perfect shell of her ear, “I do love you and I do want you, and it’s probably all doomed, but let’s give it a try.” 

“Finally,” Akira said into his shoulder. “I thought I’d never get through to you.” 

“Well, you know us guys can’t always take a hint. You have to be pretty direct.” 

“No kidding,” she said with breathy laugh.

-

They had dinner at his house on Long Island. She had visited once before, but only to get the tour before they headed out to see the sights. Sing cooked shrimp linguine and made a little salad, but also ordered pizza as a backup, so they ended up with way too much food. He felt a little guilt as he opened the bottle of wine that Akira brought, but the alcohol content was low enough that he felt she would be ok with one glass and he wouldn’t be arrested for supplying an underage person.

Akira took the bottle from him and poured the rest of it into the other glass, filling the deep goblet nearly up to the brim. When Sing raised both eyebrows, she said, “This one is for you.” 

“You think I need to drink more?” 

Akira smirked at him. “I think you should get tipsy enough that I can take advantage of you tonight. I plan to get to at least second base.” 

“Awfully bold,” Sing said, feeling his face warm. “Do you even know what second base is?” 

Akira reached up to cup his face in her hands, then ran them both down over his ears to his neck where he thumbs stroked his jaw. “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re worried about. I did have boyfriends in high school and college, you know.” 

Sing wondered if she could feel how fast his pulse was beating under her touch. “You mean, I wasn’t you first and only love?” 

She grinned at him. “Oh, no, you definitely were. I’ve been dreaming about you since we first met. But I couldn’t wait around for you across the ocean. A girl’s got needs, you know. Still, I wouldn’t really be happy anyone else. I’ve had this silly girly love shrine for you since I was thirteen.” 

“Where?” Sing demanded, a little scared. 

Akira poked a finger at her chest. 

“Oh, how cheesy is that?” Sing said, delighted nonetheless. 

“Yeah, laugh all you want. It’s still here and stuffed full of you. There’s no room for anyone else.” 

“That may be the most romantic and somewhat frightening thing anyone has ever said to me,” Sing admitted. 

Akira winked. “Of course it is.” 

Sometime around nine, Akira decided it was much too late for her to return to the dorms. They were sitting on the couch, close but not touching. Sing was arguing weakly that he’d drive her home. He’d hardly touched his wine after all. Akira twisted her body slowly into Sing, straddling him. He gasped and looked up into her dark eyes. 

“I’m gonna stay,” Akira said, starting to unbutton his shirt. “But if I make you uncomfortable, I can sleep right here.” 

“I’m not uncomfortable,” he said, shivering at the touch of her fingertips against his bare skin. 

“Good,” Akira, murmured, “because I’m quite comfortable here.” 

She finished opening his shirt and spread her open palms over his naked chest. He couldn’t control his reaction, mouth falling open, hands digging into the couch cushions. She stroked up and down his torso, kissed his neck and collarbones. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to do this,” she said breathily. “Every morning at the gym was like torture with how much I wanted to rip your clothes off.” 

“Seriously?” Sing said, trying not to laugh. 

Akira silenced him with a deep kiss and they did that for a while, making out like horny highschoolers. Sing eventually got brave enough to put his hands on her back and shoulders, feeling her muscles move through the thin fabric of her dress. It was intoxicating to have her so close and hot against him. She gasped into his mouth as her breasts pressed into him. 

By the time she had got off him to unfasten her dress and pull it down to the floor, he was too turned on to remember why he had ever been hesitant. She wore peach-colored bra and underwear with a little lace. Her small breasts swelled over the cups. She went to him slowly, like a predator stalking. “If you want me to take off my underthings, you really need to remove those pants.” 

Sing’s fingers fumbled with his fly and finally he got his slacks down. As he stumbled out of them, pulling one leg out clumsily after the other, he remembered that he ought to give a responsible warning. 

“We can do stuff, but I don’t have a condom,” he said. “I didn’t really expect this to happen tonight.” 

“I brought a whole pack,” Akira said, putting both hands on his waist and yanking his boxers down. “I like to be prepared.” 

“Oh,” Sing said stupidly. Her loose hair brushed against his skin, tantalizing, electrifying. He touched her shoulder and slowly slid one bra strap off. 

“That’s hot,” Akira said, “But I really wish you’d grab my ass already.” 

“Oh,” said Sing again. He complied, squeezing both firm round, cheeks in their lacy covering. She kissed him again, wrapping both arms around his neck. Sing stopped thinking. He picked up in one smooth motion and carried her to bed. 

-

Autumn in New York seemed to burn by that year. Sing used to hate the fashionable couples walking hand-in-hand in Central Park like they were in a romantic movie trailer. But with Akira, he understood the impulse. Every day was like floating on a wide river under a sky of golden clouds. They were stupidly happy and most likely revolting to everyone around them. 

At the gym, they did their regular workouts with a bit more physical contact than before. They could get dinner together and kiss on the way out. They could walk down the street past the food carts holding hands. Everything was like before, but enhanced. 

No one seemed particularly surprised or shocked by this development, much to Sing’s relief. Eiji was thrilled. Max shrugged and said, “You weren’t dating before?” Jessica just grinned knowingly. When Akira broke the news to her parents they seemed pleased that she had snared a rich American. Uncle Ibe blustered a bit, but said, “You’re grownups, I suppose... If you break Akira’s heart, you know what I’m gonna break.” 

This year, Thanksgiving at Max and Jessica’s had more people than ever. Charlie and Nadia came with their two kids. Sing was were for the first time in years with Akira by his side, charming everyone. Michael brought his curvy girlfriend and spent most of the evening trying to explain the football game on TV to a bunch of people who didn’t really care. Akira listened attentively, though, and asked some very good questions. Later in the night, she taught Michael some Japanese phrases with impressive patience. Sing was immensely glad that he hadn’t ever tried to set them up. 

Sing and Akira spent Christmas Eve at his house, watching all the dumb holiday classic movies and having a lot of fun “unwrapping” each other. Akira gave Sing a set of novelty ties with pineapples wearing sunglasses and octopuses with stocking caps. Then she used them to tie him up on the bed. 

They went to Eiji’s for Christmas morning brunch and mimosas. They gave Eiji a present of some teas and seasonings from Japan. Eiji got a tempura pot for Sing and a framed picture for Akira, a shot he had taken of all three of them in the summer at a street cafe, smiling and carefree. Sing hadn’t seen himself looking so happy in years. Buddy got a squeaky toy shaped like a surprised green fish, a fat rawhide bone, and a bag of treats with a pup in a chef hat grinning on the front. He settled in a corner and gnawed steadily on his bone for the rest of the morning. 

On New Years Eve, Akira wanted to be in Times Square for the ball drop. Sing convinced her it would be too crowded and cold. They wandered through a few loud bars, joined in the general revelry, but eventually just wanted to go home. Of course, there were no cabs to be found and the subway station was a long, chilly walk away. Akira had on a thin silver dress under her short coat. Halfway there, she stopped and looked up at the sky. Whistles were blowing and far-away shouts could be heard. “Is it midnight?” Akira asked. 

“I don’t know,” Sing admitted. “But it feels like a good excuse for a kiss.” He opened his wool coat and wrapped it around her shivering body, then drew her close, as she folded her arms around his neck. The air was sharp and crisp. Akira smoldered against him like a slow blue flame. 

-

His time with Eiji as his lover had made him feel desperate and guarded, trying to fix a puzzle box of love and grief without catching on a hidden tripwire. Akira made him free, giddy, unleashed. There were no ghosts in her bed, no regrets to tie them both down.

One night, the old nightmare came to him, screaming at Ash’s back in the alley by the library, _“Goddammit! How can you let him go?”_ But after the dream broke, he woke next to Akira and the pain and fear drained out slowly, leaving only an ache of absence. “Let him go,” he whispered to himself. Akira’s breath warmed his shoulder. 

-

(When Akira turns twenty-one, Sing asks her to marry him. Of course, she is too young and it’s wildly impractical and she’ll probably leave him for a younger man. But if Eiji and Ash taught him anything, it was that you have to grab your happiness while you can.) 

Spring approached, and with it came the end of Akira’s student visa. Sing felt like the days were slipping through his fingers like water. Akira spent a lot of time looking for jobs and internships that might sponsor her for a work visa. But she still had another year of college to finish, she acknowledged glumly. 

The smart thing to do would be to encourage her return to Japan, finish her degree, and see if the year apart would change anything between them. He couldn’t ask for any promises when their relationship was so new and she had so much more to experience in her young life. But the thought of losing her made a sickness rise in his gut. He couldn’t even wrap his mind around a future without her. 

So when they were walking through Central Park for the last time, visiting the same old hot dog stand, he pulled a ring out of his pocket and folded it in her hand. It was slender and smooth and unbreakable, like her. Akira closed her palm around it briefly, giggled a sharp, high laugh of surprise and joy. Then she opened her hand and examined the ring, face flushing. “I really didn’t expect you’d have the balls to do this for a least a few more years,” she said, laughing again with a glitter of moisture in her eyes. 

“I didn’t think I would either,” he admitted. “But I really, really want you to be in my life forever, even though it’s kind of selfish.” He sucked in a breath, chest tightening. “I still want you to go home to Japan and finish school. But just know that I’m waiting here for you across the ocean.” He paused and stuttered, “Or...I could live in Japan with you if you’d rather stay there with your family. Anywhere you want to be.” 

“New York,” Akira said firmly. “It’s always gonna be you and it’s always gonna be New York. My family already knows that.” 

Sing felt a weight lift off him. “Then we have a whole year to plan a wedding.” 

“Two weddings,” Akira countered. “My mom would never forgive me if I didn’t have a ceremony in Japan too.” 

“As long as you don’t have two husbands,” Sing teased. He beamed as Akira slid the ring on her finger and then they walked hand and hand to the hot dog stand so she could immediately show it off to the bored vendor. 

-

Sing would have flown to Japan every weekend if he could, but instead he had to content himself with long phone calls, emails, and online chats. The weeks and months dragged on but he tried to keep himself busy. He helped Bones and Kong open another location for their highly-successful gym chain, helped Eiji clean out his storage space and sort through reams of film, and ran five miles every morning to clear his head. 

As another summer neared its end, he felt himself brimming with impatience. One gray morning, he was at his desk, carefully examining project proposals when he heard raised voices. Looking up through the window of his office into the building, he saw people on their feet speaking animatedly. 

Sing pushed through the door. “What’s going on?” 

Janelle, the administrative assistant looked at him with wide, watery eyes. “Something just flew into one of the trade center towers. A plane, I guess?” She looked blindly at the computer screens that others were huddled around. 

“Is this for real?” someone said, uncomprehendingly. A programmer, Mike had a hand over his mouth, text and images reflected on his eyeglasses. 

Sing was frozen in place for a moment. Then he leaned over Mike’s shoulder, skimming the words. There were multiple reports. It was for real. New York was burning. 

\- 

When Akira could finally get through the phone to him, she was in tears. “I can’t believe this is happening. Everyone is so scared, even here in Japan.” 

“My first thought was Eiji,” Sing admitted, “even though he had no reason to be there. But I checked in with everyone and we’re all ok at least. Small comfort that there aren’t any casualties among my friends.” 

“I’m so thankful,” Akira murmured. “But the videos they play on the news are horrible. I can’t stop thinking about all those people there, just doing their business or going to lunch. It’s unimaginable.” 

“Feels like the whole city is in a state of shock.” 

“My parents won’t even think of letting me go back there,” Akira said. “They assume terrorists are hiding around every corner. I’m an adult and I can do what I want, but I know they’ll be worried sick about me every day if I go to New York.” 

“I’ll come there,” Sing said desperately. 

“No, don’t. Just give it time. Once things settle down, maybe I can convince them that the danger is not as great as they think.” 

“I miss you,” Sing groaned. He rubbed a hand over his face, over his gritty eyes. “Every day feels like a funeral now. We have to be in mourning all the time. Death is everywhere. I want to live.” He didn’t know if he was making any sense. It was late and he felt as drained as an empty plastic bottle. And Akira was so far away. 

“My heart is breaking for the city, and I miss you so much it hurts,” she said softly. “Just keep living. We’re going to make it, I know.” 

-

The smoke cleared, the airports opened, and New York rolled back into action. Some wounds could never heal, but time didn’t stop for tragedy. Sing did his best to push through the haze of fear and distrust that seemed to cloud the world every day, but he was also heartened by the many residents who showed kindness and resilience in small acts every day. Blood banks and hospitals had to turn people away by the dozens because they had too many volunteers. Tributes to the first responders poured in from around the country. For a city formerly known for being cold, rushed, and impersonal, New York had a lot of heart. 

The day after Akira’s graduation, Sing arrived in Izumo with a suit and a formal black yukata. The ceremony took place at a Shinto shrine where Akira wore a huge white headdress and they drank sake given by a priest in a traditional ritual. Sing’s yukata was hot and stiff. The sake flowed over his tongue, cool and smooth. Akira’s calm presence at his side soothed his jangling nerves. 

Afterwards, they drove to a lavish hotel ballroom where Sing put on his suit, Akira changed into a flouncy, shimmering blue dress, and they poured drinks for various guests who were seated at little tables. There wasn’t much time for them to eat between the wardrobe changes speeches, and little ceremonies, cutting cake and making small talk with guests. It was all much more involved than Sing had anticipated, but he did his best to keep up. He was, however, starving by the end of the day. 

Then there was a nijikai gathering with close friends and family at an izakaya restaurant where he could finally snack on grilled fish, edamame, and onigiri. Ibe filled Sing’s plate with food and everyone was pouring drinks for Sing. He had to carefully pace himself to avoid falling on his face, dead drunk, on the way out. 

“Are they going to expect all this when we get married in the states?” he asked Akira quietly. 

“No, but they will want me in a white wedding dress in front of a little church, if you can arrange that. They might even make the flight to scary America if you get me a bouquet of lilies. We Japanese can’t resist a basic, stereotypical Western wedding.” 

-

So that’s what they did, a few months later. They had a small, traditional wedding in a cute old white church near Cape Cod. It made for a nice, bland setting and impressed Akira’s family. Jessica cried the whole way through. Max looked like he was fighting tears most of the time too. His eyes were red and swollen when he hugged Sing and Akira. 

Eiji had them step into a nearby field for the photos. Daisies and purple vetch were starting to bloom and fraying clouds scattered across the blue sky for a backdrop. Eiji crouched or lay stomach-first in the grass and snapped multiple shots, giving no directions at all. 

Sing leaned his forehead against Akira’s and looked into her clear, confident eyes. “Too late to back out now, I guess.” 

“Oh, you can back out,” she said, lips curling up, “but you won’t live long after that.” 

“Well, I can’t imagine living without you anyway,” Sing said, knowing it was trite but true. 

Akira smothered a laugh. “Likewise, you big ape. It’d be pretty strange without you around to make my life so complicated and interesting.” 

“But in a good way, right?” 

“In the best way, Mr. Soo-Ling. The very best” 

-

Eventually, Akira got a job teaching Japanese part-time at a local high school on Long Island. After overcoming her initial nerves, she grew deep connections with her students and her co-workers. Her English improved by leaps and bounds. She also picked up plenty of Japanese tutoring jobs in her spare time, since the anime and manga craze was in full swing among the youth of America. 

When the tech industry took a hit, Sing was high-ranking enough to survive the cuts, but his company had to scale back significantly. He might have lost the house on Long Island, if it weren’t for Akira’s extra income. They scrimped and saved and put off getting a new roof for another year. 

Before Akira, the house had barely felt like a home. He’d always been more comfortable in Eiji’s apartments which contained more life and warmth than the blank, bare walls in Long Island. But Akira’s energy colored the blank spaces and filled the empty places. She put up an eclectic collection of string art, mosaics, etchings, and abstracts. She loved finding bargains at the flea market and occasionally came home with pieces that made Sing raise an eyebrow. Did they really need an umbrella stand shaped like a medieval castle tower? But somehow it all worked. It fit. And Sing grew a deep fondness for all the little things in their big home. 

In the coming years, he thought, they might even have a few little people to help them fill it up. Who knows? 

-

The call from Eiji came on a Monday. It had been so long since they’d talked that Sing felt a pang of guilt when he saw the name come up on his phone. After a few pleasantries, Eiji said, “I thought you should know that Buddy died.” His voice was so calm and level, Sing had to take a second to react. 

“Oh my god.” He actually felt tears heating his eyes. “But he was pretty old, I guess. Did he go peacefully?” 

“He was in a lot of pain and the vet said it was time, so we gave him the shot. I wanted to bury him under the maple tree by our building, but the neighbors won’t allow it, so I had him cremated and just buried the pot at night.” 

“That must have looked suspicious.” Sing tried to chuckle, but he sounded hoarse. “I’m glad he’s resting in the spot he liked so much. Are you thinking about getting another pet? I know it’s really soon…” 

“No,” Eiji said, “I think Buddy will be the last of my animal companions.” 

Sing swallowed, blinking. “Are you ok, Eiji?” 

“Of course.” And he did sound fine, normal placid Eiji. “It’s very sad, but nothing lasts you know. Otherwise we’d get comfortable and bored.” 

“I just don’t want you to be alone.” The words came out raw and harsh. Not how he wanted to say it. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Eiji said in that same even tone. “I have many wonderful friends…and even the occasional lover.” 

Sing’s silence trailed on. “I see.” 

Eiji could read him, as always. “You were more than that, you know.” 

“I was never enough. No one can be.” He’d known for years that Eiji had no room for anyone else in his shrine. 

“I never asked for a replacement Ash.” Eiji sounded almost angry for once. “Look, he wasn’t some perfect golden boy like everyone makes him out to be. He could be irritable, demanding, and self-centered. He was scared of pumpkins, for god’s sake, and he made fun of my cooking.” His voice slowed, softened. “But he gave me strength. He was perfect for me, just like Akira is perfect for you. We are both lucky to have found someone like that. Don’t you think?” 

“Yeah,” Sing said at last, trying not to sound like he was about to cry. “But you don’t have anyone now.” 

Eiji huffed in protest. “I’m not lonely, really! I have so much work and so many people in my life. I’m quite happy in my little home.” After a few seconds of silence from Sing, he conceded, “Okay, maybe I’ll get a cat.” 

-

Akira had promised Eiji a batch of her tasty manju buns and tasked Sing with dropping them off on his next visit. No one answered when he knocked, but Sing still had a key and Eiji hadn’t changed the locks. 

He was asleep on the couch, few dishes in the sink, and yes, a calico cat perched on the counter. Photos were lying everywhere as usual. Although the house was steeped in silence, a subtle rhythm, like a heartbeat, moved through it, steady and slow.

The sun was going down and golden rays slanted in from the window. In the sunlight, in the dust motes rising like magic in its beams, a presence filled Sing, a soft breath—and why had he never named it before? It seemed so clear now. 

_“It’s just like that Demi Moore movie, _Ghost_,”_ Akira had said when she first walked into Eiji’s place. 

Sing passed the pictures on the wall, never dusty—Max, Jessica, and Michael when he was a kid, hugging him close between them; the boys from the gang trying to look tough; Buddy and Nadia and Sing at the noodle shop; and Sing with Akira, captured at their wedding. She was laughing up at him, her veil falling off her head while Sing stared at her with that stupid serious look, but a twitch in his mouth, almost a smile, and his fingers were laced firmly in hers. 

And there was Ash sitting on the window ledge, caught in a rare moment of peace, enveloped in the sun. The words of the reporter many years ago came back to him: _“What shall we call it? An indefinable warmth? Kindness?—in the camera’s gaze towards its subjects.”_

_Love_, Sing thought. Eiji loved these people, this city, completely and unconditionally. And nothing could take that away from him. Love followed him and surrounded him like a benevolent spirit. Ash. 

“You are not alone.” Sing whispered, reciting the words of Eiji’s letter from memory, like a spell, a prophecy. “I am with you always—my soul is with you.” The house seemed to swell around him, an invisible embrace of gentle air. 

Eiji sighed, shifted, and opened his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sing and Akira do make an appearance as a married couple in Akimi Yoshida's other manga. This my version of how it might have happened, with a hearty dose of Sing/Eiji angst to warm my slashy little heart.
> 
> I did agonize over including a scene for 9/11 in manga fanfiction, but Yoshida referenced real-world happenings like the Vietnam war and Central American juntas in Banana Fish, and it seemed weird to skip over such a huge event in NYC history during this time period. My representation of the wedding in Izumo is based off my experience attending one in Kumamoto, so if there are regional differences, I apologize. Also, forgive me for any mistakes in references to NYC, as I didn't bother doing much research. Was the Lion King on Broadway in 2000? Probably...
> 
> If you got some enjoyment or entertainment out of reading this, please leave kudos or comments. The first half of this sat on my computer for years. There would be no point in finishing it and sharing it without the feedback of this kind community.


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